


Shakeswood (aka, A Torchwood Twelfth Night)

by Dustbunnygirl



Series: Shakeswood [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:09:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5777977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dustbunnygirl/pseuds/Dustbunnygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take Torchwood and Doctor Who, throw it into a blender with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and put it on frappe.  Serve slightly chilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I

Dramatis Personae  
JACK, Duke of Cardiff  
IANTO, a young man newly stranded in Cardiff  
GWEN, sister to Ianto  
MARTHA, gentlewoman attending on the Duke, friend to Ianto  
CAPTAIN HART, a sea captain, “friend” to Gwen  
JOHN, a rich count  
TOSHIKO, gentlewoman attending on John  
SIR OWEN HARPER, nephew of John  
SAXON, steward to John  
MICKEY, a clown, servant to John

 

ACT I

The pair stood at the ship’s railing watching the dark sea merge with the moonless sky. All but a skeleton crew of sailors and deckhands had secured themselves below, sleeping perhaps, or reading, or gambling the long hours of the night away. But the two at the rail were content to stand in silence, watching the black for signs of life in the empty darkness.

“You didn’t have to come, Gwen,” the young man said, still watching the dimensionless horizon. “Didn’t have to join me in exile. Father would gladly welcome your return with open arms.”

“He can have both of us or neither of us.” The girl, Gwen, turned so that her left arm rested on the rail and her body, slight though it was, faced her brother. “We’ve been a matched set since birth, Ianto, and will continue to be so until God calls us home, hopefully within seconds of each other, as I don’t think I could bear the world without you in it.”

Ianto, taller than Gwen but not much larger otherwise, turned enough to place a hand on his sister’s cool cheek. He knew as surely as he knew anything – everything – about his sister, that the moisture beneath her eyes was not spray from the rolling sea below. “Nor could I bear it either, sister-mine.” He leaned to press a quick and reassuring kiss to her brow before resuming his sag against the slippery rail. “And yet I’d still rather see you home and happy with your Rhys than banished from familiar shores with me.”

“He was given the choice to accompany me. The lure of his family’s purse was more appealing than I was.” Gwen sighed, her weight sinking into the sturdy wood surrounding the deck. “Better to discover that now instead of after vows had bound us. Besides, there is more adventure ahead than I ever would’ve found as someone’s wife.”

“Be careful not to let the experience leave you bitter, sister.” Ianto draped an arm, affectionate and comforting, over his sister’s shoulder and pulled her close into his side. “You may yet meet your match, though I pity the poor soul who becomes ensnared by your wicked heart.”

“Oi!” Gwen thrust an elbow into Ianto’s ribs and raised a scolding finger. “No more wicked a heart than yours, and a learned student thereof, too. For God knows, yours has had two minutes longer in this world to perfect its wickedness.”

“That yours has yet kept up despite the deficit merely proves the evil prodigy you are.”

A loud crash of thunder suddenly boomed through the still night; a bolt of lightning followed, lighting the sky and illuminating the deck. While they had sailed on in calm silence, a storm had been brewing overhead, clouds coiling inward like a vast snake and poised to strike. The sizzle of ozone had barely subsided when a wind that seemed to come from nowhere rushed across the sea, churning the waves and tossing the boat wildly across them. 

Ianto grabbed hold of Gwen, securing her to him by both arms and the two of them to the boat by a frantic grip of the rail. He considered leading them both across the deck to the stairs below, but even as he thought it, he saw two of the crewmen knocked from their feet and sent into the sea by the frantic rocking. 

“Hold fast!” he shouted, voice raised to be heard over the roar of the storm and the enraged sea. Gwen wrapped both arms as tight as she could around her brother and grasped the back of his shirt in a desperate grip. “Quick as it struck, it will blow itself out just as quickly. Have faith!”

“In you, always! In the consistency of the weather, never!”

Just then, as the twins clung to each other and the rail and the hope the storm would rage itself to nothing, a storm-tossed wave swept over the deck, pummeling them without warning. The wave had strength enough to rip both from the deck and toss them into the bottomless black just over the rail. They held to each other as they fell, even as the surface of the sea slammed into them with strength enough to steal their breath. Fingers dug into clothing, bruised skin without apology or remorse, all in the name of one not losing the other. 

But a wave came, stronger than the others, stronger than the twins, and tore them apart. 

“Ianto!”

Ianto fought against the force of the surf, arms and legs pulling and kicking to carry him over the wave and back toward the sister it swept away from him. The ship rolled and dipped under the storm’s fury, dragged further from them with every rise of the wave. “I’m coming, Gwen,” he cried into the dark, eyes straining for the smallest glimpse of her in every flash of lightning. “Yell again so that I can find you!”

No answer came. 

“Gwen!”

In the distance, Ianto could see the boat failing, could barely hear the cries of the panicked crew and the creaks of wood preparing to snap. He could hear the relentless drumming of the waves, punctuated by the crash of thunder overhead. But he did not hear his sister.

“Gwen!!”

 

Ianto woke with a start, the taste of saltwater and ozone still in his mouth and wadded sheets clutched desperately in both hands. His skin was slick with sweat and he could feel the blood rushing hotly through his veins; pounding in his ears. The room around him was lit with the dim glow of approaching dawn outside his window. The air was thick with the ghosts that had chased him awake. He sank back into the soft mattress beneath him, an arm brought up to shield his eyes. They were wet with tears, as he knew they would be. As they always were.

The door to his room opened slowly, the light of a single candle spreading out from the hall in a warm arc. A lone figure, wrapped tight in a dressing gown, peered in through the opening.

“Nightmares again,” a softly feminine voice said.

“I’m sorry, Martha.” Ianto reached for the duvet and pulled it over his head with a groan. He wished, as he often did, that he could simply sink into the mattress and disappear, or that the single sheet could somehow render him and his humiliation invisible. The mattress dipped and a hand reached for the sheet, pulling it down enough to reveal his face with one firm tug. The woman hovering at his bedside had smooth dark skin and warm eyes, though they and her lips had a stern set to them as she watched him. “I did not mean to wake you.”

“Enough of those apologies, Ianto Jones. I’ve told you before, there’s no reason for them.” Once the words were out of her mouth, the harsher lines slipped from her features. The hand not keeping the candle aloft brushed damp hair back from his forehead. 

“You haven’t had a good night’s sleep in well on three months. If anything deserves an apology, that should.”

She sighed. “It’s hardly your fault your dreams are tormented so.”

“Guilty conscience,” Ianto said, sitting up against the pillows. “Only the innocent sleep soundly.”

“The only one judging you guilty is yourself, sweet.” Martha set the candle on the small table beside Ianto’s bed and folded both her hands in her lap. “God knows well your shoulders are not due that weight.”

“If not for me, she would not have been on that ship.”

“You forced her, then?”

“No, she chose to come herself.”

“Because you persuaded her against her best interests?”

Ianto scoffed. “She was not so easily led.”

Martha paused, brow furrowed in thought. “But you chose a ship you knew was destined to sink, of course.”

Ianto shook his head and sat up straighter, adjusting the sheet as he did so. “The fool’s part doesn’t suit you, Martha,” he said. 

“It doesn’t suit you either, so stop donning the jester’s cap and lining it with thorns.” Martha reached for the sheet-covered bump that most likely belonged to Ianto’s knee and squeezed it. “You keep forgetting: there is every chance she was as lucky as you were.”

“Survived on luck and a handy bit of driftwood?”

“Rescued by a kind, benevolent, beautiful soul that took pity on her bedraggled state, despite their best judgment.”

Ianto leaned forward and, with a warm hand, cupped Martha’s cheek. “I agree with all but the bedraggled state. My sense of order cannot accept that it was true.” Then, feeling none of the awkwardness he might have before, he pressed an affectionate kiss to her brow. “Thank you, if it has not been said enough.”

“It has, so let’s hear none of it again.” Giving the knee beneath her hand a pat, Martha stood. After primly smoothing out the creases in her dressing gown, she said “Now, up and dressed, you. Your Lord and Master will beckon soon enough.” Ianto groaned and sunk back onto the bed, pulling the sheet once again over his head.

“It’s too early and I haven’t yet the strength for my Lord and Master or his beckons,” he grumbled from beneath the duvet. 

“Dig deep and find it then, Master Jones,” she said, grabbing the edge of the sheet and tugging with all her surprisingly abundant strength. Ianto yelped and made a grab for the lone sheet as it began to pull away, but he wasn’t fast enough. Martha blushed faintly as he was left there in his nightclothes and turned for the door. “A new day dawns and you must rise to meet it.”

“I’ll rise, but I refuse to shine,” Ianto muttered as he lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling. A new day of my Master’s torment , he thought, watching the sunlight slowly begin to creep across the shadowed stone. He tried not to dwell on why the thought made him smile.

**

From the exterior, Torchwood Castle had the appearance of an installation awaiting the next attempt at siege more than the home of a nobleman. Boxy and bleak, its plain stone walls stretched ominously skyward, in defiance of the elements and, perhaps, God himself. The last Duke of Cardiff, several years before, had lived under constant, irrational fear of invasion, so much so that he had, despite his wife’s frantic objections, demolished the ancestral castle and had it replaced with the current, impregnable keep. When the Duchess went suddenly, shockingly mad two years later, some assumed it was merely a long history of insanity finally come to a drastic crescendo. Others wondered if two years living like a criminal inside her husband’s custom-built prison hadn’t driven her that way. Most, though, agreed that her passing three months later was a blessing.

As barren and bleak as the outside was, the interior of the castle was opulent, warm, in décor even if not in temperature. The most had been made of the scattered windows the Duke had included in the design so as to attempt to draw in as much natural light as could be drawn. Where sunlight could not reach, plentiful torches and candles were put instead, casting their pleasant light over the smooth stone. Mirrors, polished daily to a high sheen, bounced light from one corner to another to spread the illumination further. Rich, ornate tapestries depicting battles and victories – and a few that depicted things that made the women amongst the staff blush - brought color and insulation to the bare gray walls.

The most richly appointed of the rooms was the main hall. Situated in the center of the structure and as square and regimental as every other part of the castle, its walls were strewn with earthy fabric and a large fur rug – bear and, according to the current Duke, brought down with his bare hands if you believed his story – covered the floor in front of the large fireplace. A substantial chair sat at the head of the room, wide enough for its owner and at least one other person to sit, comfortably, or sprawl, as its owner often preferred. The tables, when needed, were heavy wood and polished to a rich, dark shine.

It served any number of purposes, defined by the time of day and mood of the Duke. At mealtimes it was a dining room; when threatened, it was a war room. In the evenings, after supper was cleared and if the Duke was in high spirits, it became little more than a well-dressed tavern filled with the Duke’s lewd or impossible stories and boisterous laughter. Sometimes, the tavern didn’t wait until evening to open.

That morning, it was a music room. A pair of favored musicians – two sweet, comely young men from the village renowned for their skills in the bedroom as much as for their musical talent – took up a bench to the side of the collection of bodies scattered around the room. The singer, a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a dimpled chin stood in the center of the room, eyes shut and his face overtaken by the song’s rapture. His voice was a rich baritone that blended sweetly with the flute’s lilting melodies and the harp’s rhythmic accompaniment. It settled about the room like late afternoon sunshine, warm and bright.

When the song ended, the collection of knights and valets and serving girls pulled from their duties by the serenade clapped enthusiastically. The singer gave a dramatic bow; his unruly hair almost dusted the floor, he bent so low. As he straightened, his eyes opened and took his audience in. Those eyes were a deep, devastatingly melancholy blue.

This was the Duke of Cardiff.

His father had named him simply Jack, as common a name as any nobleman had ever been given, in part because he wanted to raise his son without pretention. There would be no Ernst’s or Edward’s or Leopold’s in the Harkness line, he’d said, and made sure it stayed true, at least for his son’s generation.

“Beautiful as lark’s song as always,” said a visiting knight, near enough that he could lay a compelling hand on Jack’s shoulder and give it a firm squeeze. “Shall we have another?”

“Oh yes, another!” A bright-eyed serving girl, a hint of swoon in her eyes, clutched the pitcher she held tight to her chest. “Please, Sir Jack, can’t we have another?” 

The Duke shook his head as he retrieved a goblet from the hearth above the fire.

“No,” he said after draining the glass in one long gulp. “My muse is too ill fed for more. She grows thin without fit inspiration to feast upon.”

“But surely, sire, if music be the food of love-“

“Then my muse is a glutton and Count John must be near starved to death!” Jack tossed his empty cup to the starry-eyed girl and fell back into the large chair at the head of the room. His legs settled over the left arm, his elbow bracing his weight against the right. “If only he would listen, he would know I have enough to nourish his heart and my own.” 

“He grieves still for his sister, my Lord,” came a throaty reply from the direction of the door. A young woman stood in the entrance, a tray balanced expertly in her hands. Silver mugs and an equally silver kettle sat pristinely on the tray and didn’t shake in the slightest as she crossed the floor. She was dressed in the same simple black gown the others of the household staff wore and looked both at home and yet oddly out of place in it. “It is hard to worry about what will feed your heart when it is broken in two and the other half is still and silent in the grave.”

Jack smiled, a move that softened his face but did little to banish the darkness from his eyes. “Ah, sweet Viola. Come to dispense coffee and wisdom to those unfamiliar with both.”

The girl, Viola, curtsied when she stood before the Duke’s chair. “I dispense only what my Lord desires,” she said, her smile shy and her eyes turned down respectfully. Jack reached out a hand to cup the girl’s chin, nudging her eyes up level with his own. Some of the darkness, but not all, was replaced by a wicked mischief. 

“Only what I desire? Well, if that’s what is being dispensed, I’ve a thing or two to add to the daily order.”

Viola blushed, a deep crimson staining her cheeks and forehead. “Those are desires you should keep a tight rein on, my Lord, if you wish to eventually sway the Count and convince him of your intentions.”

Jack smiled, soft and sad, and let his hand drop. Viola gave another curtsy and filled the Duke’s cup from the steaming kettle, her steady hands from before shaking just enough to leave waves in the cup. She did the same with the remainder of the mugs, disseminating them among the guests.

“Is there anything else, my lord?” she asked when the last cup was filled and handed off. Jack paused in the savoring of his own mug to wave her off and she bowed again, slipping out as quickly as she’d arrived.

Just beyond the door, shielded from the gathering by thick rock and sturdy wood, Viola leaned against the wall and took a shuddering breath. After a second’s deep breathing and time enough to be sure her limbs were steady, she shoved off the wall and quickly made her way to a small room off the main hall she knew excess silver was kept in and ducked inside. Setting the tray and kettle on a shelf near the door, she fell back against the solid wood and slowly slid down until she sat on the cold floor. As she slid, a hand combed through her hair, removing the carefully tended wig.

Ianto’s head slumped back against the thick door, jarring without the extra cushion of the wig between his skull and the wood. “Bugger me backwards,” he said, thumping his head against the door one last time for emphasis. 

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

**

Ianto kept himself busy the rest of the day. Even in a castle as relatively small as Torchwood, there was always something that needed doing. He helped prepare the midday meal in the small kitchen, tidied the Great Hall when the Duke and his guests had moved on for the day’s activities, and offered Martha, who was head of the household staff, help in making plans for a dinner the castle was hosting for the winter holiday. It was easy to lose himself in the little details, whether the details were how many potatoes to dice to feed the motley crew that went in and out of the castle every day or the latest scuffs that needed polishing out of the silver or which noble couldn’t sit within ten feet of which other noble without potential war being declared over the roast. Was easy to forget, while buried in the minutiae that his temperature had been sent through the roof by another man’s touch. 

While he was wearing a dress, no less, which was a whole other issue that he would address at a much later date, possibly on his death bed while bargaining with Saint Peter for absolution.

His favorite thing, by far, was sneaking down to the castle’s small catacombs to help Alex, the resident scholar, make sense of the former Duke’s papers. “Franklin, God rest his soul, never understood that shifting things from one pile to another did not constitute organization,” Alex had told Ianto the first day he’d wandered down the half-hidden stairwell. While Alex had been surprised that a woman had been taught to read and write as well as “Viola” had been, he welcomed the help.

Martha found Ianto buried in a pile of old maps of the duchy, trying to place them in chronological order.

“Did you know the duchy hasn’t grown an inch since Jack became Duke?” Ianto asked as Martha wound her way through stacks and tables. “Or shrunk either, it should be said. Has he no ambition?”

“He sees no use in expanding borders just for the sake of saying he can,” she said, sidestepping a particularly precarious pile Alex had been working on before nipping out for a rare breath of fresh air. “He would defend every boundary and border that exists with his very life, surely, but doesn’t need to push them further.” She stopped behind Ianto, peeking over his shoulder. “Is it so wrong, simply being happy with what you have?”

“Not at all. I simply find the attitude fascinating. Others of his station are not as easily appeased.”

“Our Jack, as I’m sure you have discovered, is quite rare.” Martha leaned her hip against the edge of the table Ianto worked from, arms crossed over her chest. “He’s asked for you.”

Ianto sputtered and nearly choked on his tongue. “He what?”

“As I was boring him with the latest seating arrangement.” She stretched up, trying to seem taller than her petite height as she squared her shoulders in a very Jack pose. “‘Where is our sweet Viola?’ he asked me, feigning no interest at all. ‘Off completing her daily tasks, m’lord,’ I told him. ‘Fetch her for me, I’ve need of her.’ Again, pretending it was as unimportant as the color of the grass outside his window.”

“What possibly for?” Martha’s eyebrows waggled suggestively and Ianto nearly swallowed his tongue again and turned near as red as he had that morning. “Certainly not!”

“Oh, of course. Why ever would he have such lecherous thoughts about as comely a thing as you.”

Ianto sighed and dropped his head to the table, not bothering to soften the blow at all. “I only took to the dress and wig so that I might avoid his interest! I may run the bastard through who told me the Duke had interest in only in men. He has led me too astray!”

“Calm yourself, Ianto.” Martha squeezed his shoulder warmly. “He may have need of you for something entirely banal. There’s no reason to assume it must be more.”

“You’re right, of course. Little reason to work myself up so.”

“Indeed.”

“He may only wish to discuss the coffee, or the library. Or the music for the party.”

“Indeed again. It may be just that simple.” 

Ianto rose, pushing back his chair and setting the stack of unsorted maps to the side with infinite care. He squared his shoulders and smoothed a crease from the skirt of his dress and tried to acquaint the assurances of Martha’s words with his mood and translate that to a confident stride and set of his lips, an expression only twice removed from a smile. But it only lasted until Martha’s next words.

“And if he expects anything more, just make sure your wig remains on straight.”

Ianto resisted the urge to grab the nearest stack of ale invoices and dump them over Martha’s head. He shook a fist at her instead and headed out the vault’s door and up to his doom.

He found Jack in the Great Hall, sprawled as was his custom over the large chair by the fireplace. The Duke’s booted feet swung from their spot draped over the far arm and Ianto resisted the urge to swat his feet down and scold him about shoes being anywhere near furniture. Instead, he curtsied just inside the door and said, “I was summoned, sir?” in Viola’s carefully pitched voice.

“Ah, Viola. Come in, come in.” Jack swung his legs over the arm and pushed himself to his feet. His whole body was overcome with a twitchy sort of vibrancy that both amused and frightened Ianto. “Martha found you, I see.”

“Aye, sir, in the vault. Sir Alex had me in the maps – had me working in the maps,” he amended, trying to head off the wicked glint in Jack’s eyes. He failed. “By the time we’re done you will have the most organized vault in the known world.”

“Perhaps then someone will tell me why I’m in need of the most organized vault – whether it be in the known world or the unknown one.”

“Convenience and expediency, my lord.” Ianto nodded and gave a slight curtsy. “And pride, if one has use of such a thing.”

“All men have use of pride, sweet Viola. Have you not yet learned that plain fact?” Jack turned, took two steps toward the chair, and stopped. After a breath’s pause, he said, “Viola. Not the most Welsh of names.”

“No, sir, quite not. But my father was a traveler by spirit, if only a tailor by trade. It’s how he came to have his first cup of coffee in a tavern in the east – and came to fall in love with a woman of Verona.” Ianto paused, attention drawn to the cold fireplace and its empty hearth. “Our mother was Italian.”

“Our?” Jack prompted.

“I…had a sister. As dear to me flowers are to Spring.” He sighed and turned away from the Duke. “And as short-lived.”

He didn’t hear Jack move, but there was suddenly a hand on his shoulder, warm and steadying. “I’m sorry. How did she…”

“The sea. I hear at least that it is a pleasant death, drowning. Without pain.” Ianto quickly wiped at his eyes, shocked and horrified to find himself crying. I’ve played the woman’s part too long, he thought. Much longer and I may become one entirely. He pulled away from Jack’s hand and turned, a smile plastered well over his lips. “It’s no matter. I doubt you called me here to discuss my misfortunes.”

“I find great hope in your misfortunes.” At Ianto’s confused expression, Jack chuckled. “In the way you handle those misfortunes. Others would let the grief consume them, lock them away without the comfort or solace of the world and what I has to offer. You have not.”

“It’s tempting, my lord.” Ianto gave a little shrug. “Every day, I’m presented with the choice to either lie in bed and weep, risking drowning myself in my own tears, or to get out of bed, turn my face to the sun, and carry on. So far, I carry on.”

Jack appeared honestly interested. “How did you come to those two choices?”

Ianto thought of Martha, just that morning, and smiled. “A very good friend who would not let me wallow or lock myself away in an early tomb.”

“You are lucky then to have such a friend.” Something suddenly lit up in Jack’s eyes, a spark of life Ianto had come to recognize as a warning. The grin that followed only furthered Ianto’s feeling of doom.

“I mean no disrespect, sir, but that grin of yours troubles me.”

“You know me well.”

“And I fear the trouble behind that expression is going to be mine.”

Jack reached a hand out, his knuckles soft against Ianto’s cheek. “No trouble, Viola, I promise you, beyond a little inconvenience.”

“Tell me of this inconvenience then so that I might prepare a rebuttal.” It took careful concentration and time to keep Ianto’s voice even and steady. That simple brush of a hand had an unnerving affect.

“You and the Count,” Jack said as his hand traveled further, a light touch against Ianto’s hair, “you suffer a common affliction. Perhaps if you shared a bit of the medicine that helps to lessen your symptoms, he could find his own way to a cure. And then find his way to me.”

“You…”Ianto’s voice caught, only partially due to the fear that the wig would slip and reveal his true nature. The Duke was too close – far too close for Ianto’s continued comfort. “You know as well as I any messenger from your Court will be turned away. It seems a fool’s errand, by my estimation. What will make my entreaties of a council any more successful than the others previous?”

“Your excessive stubbornness. In truth, I think you were gifted with double the helping of the rest of your countrywomen.”

Ianto frowned and hoped, for the sake of his ruse, that it at least resembled a pout. “I don’t know if I should thank you for the kind words or take offense at the insult, sir.”

“Thank me, of course.” Jack paused and let his hand drop from Ianto’s hair, only to acquaint itself instead with the back of his neck. Ianto gulped, which only added fuel to Jack’s wicked grin. He leaned forward, voice a rich whisper against Ianto’s ear. “Have I ever told you how enflaming that simple word is, rolling off your tongue?”

Ianto’s mouth went suddenly dry and he was glad for the thickness of the dress’s skirts and petticoats and their ability to hide his body’s basest reaction. “Which word, my lord?”

“Sir. When you say it like that, with that hint of amusement and irritation and affection, I’m hard pressed to remember that I am a gentleman.” As if in emphasis of how hard pressed he was, Jack rocked his hips forward, pressing an unmistakable erection into Ianto’s hip. Ianto bit back a groan and stepped away, back turned to the Duke so that he might have a moment to regain a modicum of composure.

“I find it … difficult … to remember that you are a gentleman as well.” Ianto looked up toward the ceiling, sighing, as he came to a decision. “I will deliver your message. Attempt to deliver it, that is, though I make no more promise than any of the others have, or expect more success than any of the others had.”

Jack took two quick strides forward, reaching for Ianto’s hand and guiding it up gently so that he could press a kiss to his knuckles. “In you, sweet Viola, I have nothing but faith.” Without waiting for further comment, Jack released his soft grip on Ianto’s hand and strode from the hall, leaving Ianto alone in the silent room. When the Duke’s footsteps had faded entirely, Ianto made his way to the chair at the head of the room and sank bonelessly into it. 

Martha found him there a minute later. She had her mouth open to ask a question when Ianto shook his head. 

“Curse me as all kinds of fool,” he said, staring at a fixed point just over Martha’s shoulder and through the open door, “but there’s little to be done about it. I’ve grown far too fond of the Duke for anyone’s good.”

**

That night, on a dark stretch of beach along the bay, a small, two-person wooden craft came ashore. The boat looked rough and barely seaworthy, as if it had been bashed around by the waves for some time. A tall man, wearing the sun-faded uniform of a captain, pulled the boat through the shallower waters until it reached dry land. Inside the boat, slumped in exhausted sleep, was a woman, dark-haired and bedraggled, her clothing as rough and weather-beaten as the boat.

The man stood and stretched when he had the boat steady in its shallow trench and collapsed against the bow. The boat, barely capable of remaining in one piece, let alone upright, toppled under the sudden impact and spilled its occupant out onto the sand. She spluttered awake with a face full of grit.

“My apologies,” said the captain, though he smiled as he said the words. “After so long at sea I’ve forgotten my own strength.”

“Forgotten many things, chief amongst them manners,” the woman said as she righted herself and pushed wild hair back from her face. “How I managed so long without pushing you overboard I do not know, but so much patience must surely mark me for potential sainthood.”

“You kept me aboard because you would never find land on your own.” The captain looked over his shoulder, leering at the view of his passenger’s backside as she struggled to her feet. “And you find me dashing and irresistible and have unladylike designs on the more remarkable bits of my anatomy.”

The woman finally managed to stand and made use of her new upright position and questionable equilibrium to kick a strong line of sand at her rescuer. “I assure you, Captain Hart, that I have no such designs on any part of your anatomy.”

Hart’s eyebrows danced as he pulled off his jacket and left it to the side. “Your lips say no, but your eyes…”

“And I have my doubts that any such part of it deserves the term ‘remarkable’ applied to it.”

Hart shrugged and pulled off first one boot, then the other, dumping salt water and sand from each. “I did offer to provide proof of the claim, my dear Lady Gwendolyn, but you refused it repeatedly.”

“I grew up with a brother, Captain. The male anatomy ceased to entertain me years ago.”

“Which is only proof that your brother’s was unremarkable.”

Gwen rolled her eyes and walked away from the boat, putting a good two feet between it and herself before looking up and examining her surroundings. “Where are we?”

Hart raised his head and took in the coastline. “Home sweet home. My home sweet home.” When Gwen continued to stare at him expectantly, he shook his head. “The Duchy of Cardiff.” As if sensing his companion’s continued exhaustion – which wouldn’t have been hard to do simply looking at her, he said, “You’re safe, lady. No one will harm you here. Take rest awhile. We can explore further by daylight.”

“I would like to sleep a bit somewhere that doesn’t rock and sway with every passing wave,” Gwen said, drawing her eyes away from the dark landscape finally. She reached for and grabbed Hart’s wet jacket from where he’d left it, grinning at his look of pique. “Wake me at first light please, Captain.”

Hart muttered but said nothing loud enough for Gwen to hear him as she settled on a patch of grass near the boat, his jacket rolled up beneath her head. He leaned instead against the boat, arms wrapped around his knees and a wary eye cast at the shadowed land ahead. 

“Yes, safe as houses you are, lady. If only I were as lucky.” He sighed and shook his head. “Was better off in the bloody ocean, I was.”


	2. Act II

ACT II 

Castle Gallifrey, situated as it was on a gently rising hill which sloped down on either side into a resplendent glade, was neither large nor ornate. The keep’s four simple towers rose from behind a modest curtain wall, the odd blue stone they consisted of nearly disappearing against the azure sky. At the height of the day, when the sun hovered directly overhead, the stones nearly glowed. Odder than the stones that made up the castles exterior walls was the way the modest building seemed to hide such an expansive interior. Either through careful arrangement of rooms or some architect’s trick, the castle appeared much larger on the inside. 

The interiors had a distinct, oftentimes otherworldly appeal to them as well. Despite the unique hue of the stones, the interior walls had all been painted a soft, buttery tone that made the castle seem much lighter and more vibrant than simple stone would have. The décor was nearly entirely Middle Eastern in nature, dressed by the last lady of the house after a brief but memorable trip abroad. The library, which served as Count John’s domain, was the only room that differed, and he preferred darker, richer tones and more simple design. Typically, it was kept in an orderly form of disarray, with books or papers or objects tossed in what appeared to be a haphazard manner but really fit within some odd sense of structure only the Count understood. 

The Count and one other person, a shy and abiding soul named Toshiko who had, prior to the lady’s death, served as gentlewoman to the Count’s sister, Donna. The two girls had been together since either could walk; Toshiko’s mother had been hired as a cook by the former Count during his travels when Donna was but four and Toshiko just past two. In the lady’s passing, Toshiko had repurposed herself as the Count’s caretaker, babysitter, and part-time nag. The position came with many unplanned duties – such as reminding Count John when to eat, when to sleep, when his clothes likely needed washing, when the piles in his library should be tended to before they toppled over – and a few unexpected perks.

Sir Owen Harper somehow managed to fall within both categories.

Sir Owen had, by all stories, spent some time training as a healer before he simply grew bored of the endless lessons. Brilliant though he was, Owen lacked patience and was infamous for the ridiculously short length of his attention span, both of which served him better as a laze about noble than a member of the physician’s caste. Since choosing a life of leisure, he had mostly set about spending his cousin John’s purse, flirting with any female member of the nobility that would give him the time of day, and slowly but surely drinking his way through the entirety of the continent’s store of alcohol. He spent so much time either drunk or hung over that it was rare to find him in a strictly sober nature.

Which is why, after searching the rest of the castle, Toshiko found Sir Owen passed out beneath a table in his cousin’s library, snuggled up with a half-finished bottle of wine and his head pillowed on a bent arm. Snoring. The piles that had been stacked in various stages of neatness on the table were now tumbled and the pages were scattered over the floor. Toshiko stood over the culprit, shaking her head 

“I should let you stay there until your uncle finds you,” she muttered to herself as she slowly pulled the bottle from his grasp. “He will tolerate much, but desecrating his inner sanctum thusly is beyond even his immense patience.” With an almost sad sigh, she straightened, grabbed a pitcher from the table, and poured its cold contents directly over Owen’s head. As he shot upright, sputtering, he slammed his head into the edge of the table. It only made him sputter louder.

“For God’s sake, woman!” Owen yelled, rubbing his forehead. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Trying to wake you before Count John finds you here and disowns you properly for making such a mess.” Toshiko kneeled next the the table and pulled his hand away, carefully examining the small bump forming where the tabletop and his head had collided. “It’s hardly a mortal wound.”

“You’re the medical expert now, are you?”

“No, but neither are you, so your diagnosis of encroaching death is no more valid than mine. Now up, you lazy lout, before I fetch another pitcher.”

Toshiko stuck out a hand in offered assistance and Owen took it gladly. Between the two of them, they got his lithe frame leveraged off the floor and his weight, more or less, redistributed to both of his feet. More or less, of course, because he seemed hardly sturdy on them. 

“What hour is it that you’re waking me thus?” Owen asked as Toshiko led him out of the library by a steadying hand on his elbow. 

“An hour past breakfast. I would’ve woken you sooner, but it took this long to find you.”

Owen leaned against the petite woman’s shoulder, smiling a little drunkenly. “But you saved me a bit to eat, didn’t you?” Toshiko rolled her eyes, but her answering smile was fond and good natured.

“I did. It will be cold, but that’s the least you deserve.”

The pair descended a curving stairwell to the main floor, Owen stopping often to lean into the wall long enough for the spinning in his head to pass. Toshiko waited out each spell, biting her tongue against every reproachful thing that threatened at her tongue. He was a grown man, Sir Owen was, and it was not her job to mother him. Not when she had such a different role in mind for herself in his life. 

As they stepped into the kitchen, Toshiko noticed a figure crouched in front of a basket full of apples, rifling through its contents. She cleared her throat to get the thief’s attention but the rifling did not stop. 

“Ahem,” she said, louder, growing impatient. Still the thief continued his search.

“Oi!” Owen said, flinching even as his raised voice left his lips. “Who goes there, stealing apples and ignoring the good women that catch them?”

“Determined yourself a woman now, have you Sir Owen?” The body crouched over the apple basket stood, an apple in each hand and a bite gone from both. His skin was the color of dulled copper and his eyes were bright and full of a worrying joy, as if they held the truth of some prank newly played but not yet discovered. The pockets of his cloak were bulging with hidden apples. “I often wondered when you would admit the truth of it to yourself.”

Sir Owen gave a whoop of joy as he pulled himself from Toshiko’s steadying arms and reached to embrace the intruder. “Ah, Mickey the Idiot,” he said, slapping the other man firmly on the back. “If ever a time and place had need of a Fool again, it is this one.”

“They had you all this time. Was that not Fool enough?”

The two men laughed as they stumbled toward the table, each falling without grace into a chair. Toshiko stood to the side, watching them both with annoyance. 

“The time for a Fool’s visit passed some months prior, I think,” she said, moving to the great shelf along the wall to retrieve Owen’s plate. “Where were you three months ago when my lord most needed the distraction?”

“The world is wide and far and in short supply of good Fools,” Mickey said, taking another bite out of his left hand apple. 

“And it did not gain one having you walking it.” The plate landed in front of Owen with more force than needed, as did the cup of water that joined it a second later and sloshed half its contents over the table. 

“Do you wish to draw blood, Lady Tosh, that your tongue cuts so sharply?”

“I wish many things,” she said, before sinking into a chair of her own. “The least of which is a moment’s reprieve from grief for the Count. He dwells too deeply in it; I fear he might lose himself there.”

“He needs a woman,” Owen said around a mouthful of food. “There is little bleak in the world that a firm pair of breasts and a soft pair of thighs cannot cure.”

Toshiko threw a cold look across the table; Owen missed it entirely. “Is that your professional opinion, Doctor Love?”

Before the conversation could fall further into calamity, the kitchen door swung roughly open, slamming into the wall and setting the plates to shaking. In the doorway stood a well-dressed man with precisely trimmed hair and narrowed eyes. His head sat cocked on his neck at a constant haughty angle, lifted just enough so that only the tallest of men could avoid being looked at down the harsh slope of his nose.

“Master of the House Saxon!” Mickey said with an abbreviated bow. “A grand entrance indeed. Would that it showed more originality. I would score it higher.”

“What is the meaning of this!” he shouted from his perch in the doorway, ignoring the Fool’s remarks.

Toshiko eyed the man with curiosity tinged briefly with contempt. “Tell us what this it may be, Saxon, so that we may give its meaning.”

“I have seen the library,” he said, and stopped there. His eyes bore into the three seated at the table, as if those few words carried all the accusation he needed to express. When none flinched, he stepped further into the room. “I have seen the chaos someone left in the library.” He stopped just behind Owen’s chair and sniffed at the other man’s shoulder. “I would say the family drunkard was responsible, as he left his wine behind and reeks of liquor.”

“Ah, but that should be proof enough of my innocence,” Owen said, pausing long enough over his bread to speak. “The family drunkard would not leave wine behind to be found.”

Toshiko glared at Owen, then turned a smiling face to Saxon. “Merely a window left open over night, Master Saxon. The wind was quite strong last evening. It will be set to rights before my lord makes notice of it.”

Saxon narrowed his eyes further as he stared across the table at Toshiko. His hand rested on the tabletop and his fingers drummed rhythmically against the dimpled wood. “When will you run out of excuses, Mistress Sato, for my master’s ill-mannered kin?”

“My vocabulary is wide and its uses limitless,” the gentlewoman said with a cool, biting smile. 

A page slipped in then and whispered something in the Master of the House’s ear that had him nodding furiously. When the page departed, Saxon turned to the three at the table.

“My attentions are needed elsewhere,” he said, adjusting the hang of his jacket. “See that the library is set to rights, Mistress Sato, before the Count discovers the treatment the wind gave it.” Without waiting for a response, Saxon spun on his heel and strode out the door again. Toshiko grabbed the apple from Mickey’s right hand and flung it at the door the second it closed.

“I was eating that!”

“So eat the other and pray I don’t throw it as well!” Toshiko slid from her chair, pacing to the door to clean up splattered apple and throwing it forcefully in with the other rubbish. “That man could breed disdain in the air itself.”

“He is by far too proud for his position,” Owen added, pushing his empty plate aside. “It would do him well to be brought closer to his level.”

“I swear that he’s half smitten with the Count,” Toshiko said as she returned to her chair.

“No!” both men said in unison.

“Truly. I’ve seen more than mannerly respect in his eyes when he’s watched John cross a room.”

Mickey slapped the top of the table hard enough to knock Owen’s empty cup on its side and cause both his companions to jump. “If that is true then I have the perfect plan to knock him down a peg or two.”

Toshiko leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes fixed on the young Fool. “Share your brilliance and there may yet be lunch in your future.”

“Then gather close, my compatriots,” Mickey said, waving Owen close so that their voices could be kept low. “First, we will need a letter…”

**

The man standing in the center of the castle’s great hall looked lost. He stared ahead at the empty doorway, blinking now and then, as if the open entry held the answer to the question in his head but he just couldn’t see it. Perhaps if he turned his head just so, squinted his eyes a little bit more, wrinkled his nose enough, the answer would appear in the air between one side of the frame and the other. Maybe if he crossed his fingers, or his eyes, or his left big toe with its accompanying second digit while standing on one foot…

Count John was tall enough for propriety’s sake but by no means a large man, neither in height nor in width. He had the lithe, lanky build of a mere boy and, at times, the disposition and humor to match. His hair, kept just long enough on top to insure it would never sit flat, stood up at an unnatural angle, aided by the hand that lifted then to run through it. He was never still: he rocked as he stood, first backward and forward on the balls of his feet, then shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then repeated the pattern all over again. If his hand wasn’t making a mess of his hair, it was stroking his chin or pinching his nose or tugging at his ear. There was more energy in his compact body than he could find use for and nothing he did seemed to lessen it at all. 

He straightened suddenly, eyes bright and just a little mad. “Oh yes!” he declared, loudly, to the empty room. He strode to the small table beside the door and picked up the quill lying there. As he dipped the tip of the quill into the ink pot with more force than needed the contents overran the lip of the small jar and stained the fingers wrapped around the quill. He didn’t notice. He was far too intent on getting down to parchment whatever thought had sprung into his brain.

Was so engrossed in that thought that Saxon had to knock three times, clear his throat, and finally step in unbidden to gain his master’s attention.

“Sir,” he said, when he stood at the Count’s side. 

“Ah, Saxon!” John didn’t look up from his scribbling, nor did he jump at the other man’s interruption. “How long have you been standing there?” 

“Not long, sir, surely.” The Master of the House glanced idly over the Count’s shoulder, trying to make sense of the odd scribbles and doodles filling the page. “What spark of genius has consumed you this morning?”

“Nothing, nothing, just a theory. Mad theory, utterly, possibly impossible.” John paused in his work, looked at a bundle of words and hasty sketches in the upper right hand corner, and quickly crossed them out. “No, that bit there is completely impossible.”

“I do not mean to interrupt such important work, sir, but there’s someone at the gate.”

“Always is. That’s what a gate’s for, isn’t it? Give people a place to come when they’d like entrance onto the estate? Would seem silly if there was never anyone there.”

Saxon blinked, but if he thought the tangent odd, he didn’t speak of it or show outward indication. “Rightly, sir. This particular guest wishes to speak with you.”

John sighed and raised his head, eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. “Another envoy of the Duke’s, I suppose.”

“Correctly so, my lord.”

“Send them on their way like the others,” he said with a wave of his ink stained hand. “If we send enough of them back empty-handed, perhaps Jack will get the message.”

“I would, gladly, but this one is much more stubborn than the others and says she will not go until she’s spoken with you.”

John turned, fixing his attention on his head of house. “She?”

“Aye, she. Very stubborn and ill-mannered she at that. I told her that you were resting and would not take visitors. She said only ‘I will wait’. I told her you were ill and would not take visitors. ‘I am sorry that the Count is unwell, but I shall not leave without speaking to him,’ she said.”

John’s head resumed the intrigued tilt it had taken while staring at the opened door earlier. “All right,” he said after a long and silent pause, “send the rude girl in. I will speak with her, if only to send her on her way and reinforce the simple message you delivered so well.”

“As you wish,” Saxon said with a bow and a hint of a smile. John didn’t take the time to wonder what laid behind the smile and simply turned back to his work. At a commotion in the hallway, he left the parchment and quill and poked his head out the still open door. Toshiko, Mickey, and Owen were huddled just before the bend in the hall, whispering conspiratorially and watching something that had rounded the corner and gone on out of the Count’s sight. 

“Have a flock of birds invaded the castle that I hear so much twittering?” he asked, pinning the three troublemakers with an amused look. Toshiko coughed once, choking down the fit of giggles she’d been struck with.

“No, my lord, certainly not,” she said, still fighting back her smile.

“Not room for an entire flock when there’s so proud a cock as that one strutting about.” Toshiko sank her elbow into Owen’s midsection as soon as the words were out of his mouth and his answering look was full of confusion. “It’s hardly a secret, is it?”

“Let him speak, Toshiko. It’s hardly his fault he was born without the sense to censure the words coming from his mouth.” John stepped into the hall, giving Mickey a quick assessing glance. “You’ve finally returned to us, have you good Sir Merry-Making?”

Mickey bowed, his fingers sweeping the cool stone beneath his feet before he rose again. “Having searched the wide world, from the highest mountain to the lowest gully, I have found nowhere else that presents such a Fool’s Paradise as this, my good sir.”

“I think it is more the company you keep than the place you find them that defines that paradise, Fool.” John leaned against the nearest stretch of wall, hands dipped into the pockets of his breeches. “Now what mischief have you lured the sweet Toshiko and my errant kinsman into and how much trouble shall it bring me?”

“No mischief or trouble, kind sir, I assure you.” Despite the solemn tone and stringent nod, there was something in the Fool’s eyes that spoke much louder and truer than his words, and John inwardly braced himself for the impending doom it would inflict upon his calm and quiet home. “Merely a discussion on the merits of the art of letter writing.”

“Company is upon us, mischief-makers three,” he said, leaving the other topic. “Your best behavior, on your honor. It may well be an unwelcome guest, but I won’t have any leaving Gallifrey telling tales of the wild and wicked folk that terrorize its halls.”

“Of course, sir,” Toshiko said, dropping into a deep curtsy. Owen and Mickey followed suit, neither having the grace to give the movement half the dignity their female counterpart had.

“On my honor, Cousin, what of it I have left,” Owen said.

“And mine as well, though I purport to have all of mine still intact.” Mickey winked as he said it.

“I trust you all to behave. God help me,” John muttered as he pushed off the wall and slipped back in the door, closing it behind him. As he set the ink pot aside, he thought he heard someone giggle again but left it alone. 

John was just taking his chair when there came a firm knock to the door. After a moment, the heavy wood swung inward and Saxon stepped inside. Ianto followed behind him, hands folded delicately in front of him as he slipped gently into the room. 

“I present Miss Viola, sir, a representative of the Duke of Cardiff’s court.” Saxon bowed, deep and dramatic, before he stepped aside.

“A pleasant morning to you, Sir Count,” Ianto said, offering a quick curtsy as punctuation. 

“It was pleasant, before my solitude was invaded.” John rested his hands on the arms of the chair and watched his guest with an air of annoyed disinterest. 

“Is solitude a kingdom, that it may be invaded so?” Ianto turned in a slow circle, arms out to his sides. “If my plan was invasion, I’ve come unarmed and ill-prepared.”

“A woman, in my experience, is never unarmed,” John said with a grin he couldn’t hold off no matter how hard he tried. “As for ill-prepared, I doubt your master sent you without a script.”

“And a man, too frequently, has brought with him the wrong arms for the battle.” Ianto dug a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his dress and unfolded it. “Most handsome, wise, and forgiving sir, I-“

“Hold.” John raised his hand to stop the flow of words. “I did not give you leave to present your master’s argument.”

Ianto blinked. “You asked after the script, sir.”

“I stated that it was unlikely he sent you without one. I did not ask to hear it.” Saxon, to John’s left, grinned. John merely sank further into his chair. “I have heard it, or its previous variation, more than enough.”

“How are you to know what may linger in the text if you do not allow it to be delivered?”

“Does it speak of his heart?”

“With every word, sir.”

John waved his hand dismissively. “Then every word of it has assaulted my ears too often before.”

Ianto took a step forward. “But sir-“

Saxon stepped into Ianto’s path, arms crossed over his chest and his shoulders squared. “My master said he’s heard enough, so off with you, petulant-“

“There are words within you have not heard before, sir,” Ianto interrupted, peeking around the impenetrable wall Saxon presented. “Soft and gentle ones too delicate to be shared with indelicate ears.”

“Do you dare suggest I can’t keep my master’s counsel?” Saxon raised his hand without thinking. Ianto did not flinch. John, from his chair, cleared his throat. Saxon glanced over his shoulder at the Count and slowly lowered his hand. “If you were not a woman…”

Ianto grinned and tipped his chin toward the Master of the House. “I look forward to the day I’m not to see how you would finish that sentence.”

“Enough,” John said, straightening in his chair so that the old wood creaked. “Leave us, Saxon. I will hear her.”

Saxon sputtered. “But my lord…”

John stood and crossed to his second, an arm on Saxon’s shoulder to gently propel him forward. As he guided the other man to the door, he spoke lowly at his ear. “I will let her speak, but only until she ceases to amuse me. Then you shall see her off.”

“I do not see why you waste your time, my lord,” Saxon said, as low as his master but twice as irritated. 

“But it is my time to waste and to my discretion how I do so,” John said as he reached for the door. “Is it not?”

“Of course it is! Sir, I did not mean to suggest otherwise!” Saxon spun on a heel and grabbed the hand that had, to that moment, been a guiding weight at his shoulder. “Please say that you will forgive my ill-mannered blathering.”

John closed his second’s hand between both of his own and smiled gently. “All is forgiven, Saxon. Now, a moment. Please.”

“Of course,” the Master of the House said as he reluctantly disengaged his hand and gave a short bow. With one more glare for the woman standing beyond his master’s shoulder, Saxon slipped out the door and closed it behind him.

Ianto had drifted to the table near the door while the Count and his man talked, examining the almost illegible scribbles peppering the page upon it. One particular scribble caught his attention and he leaned over, head canted, to read the oddly angled phrase. He grinned to himself as he tried to translate the chicken scratch and failed at the odd word or two. It was worse than his own handwriting, which took some effort. 

John found him there, squinting at the smudged ink, and must have mistaken the curiosity for confusion. “It’s nothing, really, just a bit of-“

“Disastrously poor penmanship?” Ianto grinned and reached across the paper to trace a finger beneath a particularly smudged segment of text. “You have interesting interpretations as to the uses of tea.”

“There is no more perfect a consumable than tea,” the Count said with a shocked smile. “Though I am far more interested in the possible practical applications.” He stopped at Ianto’s side, head craned to see which bit of scribbling had his guest’s attention. “Not many of your sex, especially of your station, have been taught to read.”

“My parents were quite progressive.” In some matters more than others, Ianto thought, managing to stifle the sigh before it left his lips. Quickly, then, before the topic could be probed further, Ianto turned and looked at the Count squarely. “My master loves you, sir.”

“Your master is a fool to hold onto love that has no possibility to be returned. I have run out of words to tell him thus.”

“I doubt your vocabulary is so limited. Perhaps it is lack of resistance and not wording that causes you to struggle.”

“I would run out of words long before I ran out of arguments.” John leaned a hip against the table, arms folded loose across his chest. “But tell me of your master’s words. How does he love me?”

Ianto straightened. “With such a fire that it consumes all else, my lord; his very soul, too, if he allowed it.”

John sighed. The sound reminded Ianto of similar helpless exhales he had heard from his father during their last talk. “It is not that your master isn’t a good man. In battle, there is none other I’d rather have at my side. In times of peace and of war he has been a dear friend. But I do not – cannot – love him. Not as he wishes me to. And I have exhausted the ways to tell him such, both poetical and plain. Neither dissuades him.”

“If I burned as my master does,” Ianto said, “I would not find peace in your dissuasions, either.” 

At this, John smiled. “What would you do, then, so denied?”

Ianto turned, hips braced on the table and his eyes fixed somewhere ahead of him. “I would camp outside your doorstep, forgoing food or sleep or peace for the promise of the sight of you. Sing your praises to the stars and mourn the absence of your returned love until I wasted away to nothing.” He swung his head in John’s direction and pinned the count with a solemn look. “I would make myself pitiful, sir, for the sake of such love.”

John remained silent, simply staring at Ianto with a thoughtful tilt of his head. Ianto began to fidget under the weight of that look, twisting his fingers in the long cuffs of his sleeves. He wondered, as the quiet stretched on, if he’d said something to offend the Count. But then John shook his head and stepped away.

“Go to your lord. Tell him plainly this simple truth: I cannot love him. He is to send no one else to beg me to reconsider.” He spun on his heel, an oddly desperate look to his eyes. “Unless, of course, you should come again to tell me how he takes the news.”

Ianto gave a little sigh, his head dipping toward his chest. “He will not take it well, no matter how gently I phrase it. But I will deliver it.” He turned to leave, but a hand touched his arm, bringing him to a halt.

“Let me call back Saxon to fetch something for your pains.”

Ianto smiled, half-hearted and sad. “It is not I who you’ve pained, sir. Keep your purse.” When John’s hand fell away, Ianto gave a quick curtsey and slipped out the door. 

John sighed and sank against the nearest wall, head turned to listen to the fading sound of footsteps down his hall. He thought, as he breathed in, that he caught the scent of flowers on the air then shook his head. Shook his head and laughed.

“Can a man go mad so quickly? I had my senses not so long ago, but now they seem to have left me.” He touched his forehead, then each cheek, with the back of his hand. “I may have yet caught the Duke’s fever, though the source of it will leave him disappointed.” 

**

Later that night, as the corridors of Gallifrey lay dark and quiet, three hunched shadows tiptoed through the hallways with only a single lit lamp between them. As the trio came to a corner, the figure at the front stopped and raised a hand to bring the others to a halt as well. 

“Give me the letter,” Toshiko whispered, a hand thrust back. Owen dropped it into the gentlewoman’s hand, but grabbed her wrist before she could withdraw it. 

“He will fall for the conceit?” he asked, fingers wrapped gently, but firmly, around Toshiko’s delicate hand. In the dark, Owen could barely see her roll her eyes.

“Do you think the Count writes all his own letters? Do you think all important matters wait until he can be dragged from his moments of folly?” Toshiko pulled her hand back, taking the letter with it. “Saxon will never tell this from his master’s true hand. I will eat your hat if he ever does.”

“With relish,” Mickey said as he brought up the back.

“Aye, and mustard too. Now quiet!”

Toshiko crept away from her partners in crime, leaving the lamp and all the light it provided with them as well. She counted doorways until she came to the one she knew was Saxon’s and knelt carefully before it. The letter, a single thin page held closed with wax and the Count’s seal, slid easily beneath the door. When it was delivered she straightened and crept back down the hall toward the faint pool of light.

“It is done,” she whispered once she rounded the corner again. “Come morning our tormentor will be the tormented. On my life, we will see a new Saxon.”

“And on my life,” Owen said with a groan, “if we don’t soon move my back may never straighten again.”

“I see no reason for you to need a straight back,” Mickey said as they made their silent way back the way they’d come. “Crouched, you’re closer to the bottle.”

Toshiko shook her head as she followed the two men down the hall.


	3. Act III

Gwen sat on a low log alongside an alehouse, rubbing her hands together to warm them. She could see smoke rising from the chimney, feel the edges of warmth from within every time the door opened, but sat in the cold evening instead, breathing into her cupped hands when rubbing them was not enough. 

It had been a long day of walking. Her feet had almost forgotten what it was like to have ground beneath them after so long at sea, but they were not so happy to see it again that they found joy in the endless hike Captain Hart had dragged her on. Twice she’d begged him to stop; once she’d simply collapsed and refused to stand again to continue the march. To her shock, he’d pulled her up by a harsh jerk and tossed her over his shoulder. It was better than walking, she admitted, but it gave the Captain far too much opportunity to put his hands in places they had no business being. 

She’d waited until they stopped outside the alehouse before she slapped him, though; better to be left here, near civilization, than along an unfamiliar road. 

Her dashing rescuer had disappeared inside the alehouse some time ago, wrapped in a cloak he had grabbed off a fence as they walked. There had been promises of food before he slipped inside, leaving her there alone in the dark. She hadn’t argued his order to remain waiting for him there at the time. The prospect of real food and the dull ache in her feet had her ready to agree to anything. But that was then, and she’d never been known for her patience.

She stood with a huff, smoothing out the ever-growing collection of wrinkles in her dress, and took several agonizing steps toward the door. Just as her hand was about to grasp the handle and her feet were going to demand she stop, the door swung open and the hooded shape she’d come to recognize as the Captain stepped out.

She was not surprised to smell liquor on his breath.

“Did you miss me?” Hart drawled thickly, leaning against the doorframe. A sack hung from his finger, swaying back and forth in a lopsided manner. Gwen grabbed for the sack and stumbled as Hart pulled it out of her reach. “Now that’s hardly mannerly, is it?”

Gwen steadied herself with a hand on the outer wall of the alehouse and spun on Hart, fury and fire burning in her eyes. Despite the pain she knew it would bring herself she stomped her foot down soundly on Hart’s toes. He yelped and she snagged the sack. “We will discuss manners when your fingers are half frozen and your stomach rumbles to wake the dead,” she said as she tugged the sack open and dug inside.

“A little starvation is humbling,” Hart muttered as he limped to the log and dropped himself upon it. Then he grinned. “Though, it is somehow satisfying to watch one of my betters reduced to scrabbling for food with her bare hands.”

“Quiet now. I have no intent of reducing myself further by talking with my mouth full.”

For awhile they sat in silence, sounds from the pub behind and the woods beyond interrupted intermittently by the smacking of lips as the sack and a bottle of water were passed between the two. It was simple food, bread and cheese, a little meat; the bread was stale, the cheese was warm, and the meat was cold. But it was heaven to Gwen. She was ready, at that instant, to swear off everything but old bread, too-warm cheese and day-old meat for the rest of her life if it meant a full stomach.

By the time the meal was mostly finished, Gwen had forgotten about the pain in her feet or her pique at her companion. She tilted her head up to look at the star-strewn sky overhead and sighed. She hadn’t felt this contented since…

…since she watched Ianto disappear into the surf. 

“What will you do now?” Hart asked, breaking the silence and pushing at the melancholy that threatened to invade. 

“I spoke with a woman who passed while you were obtaining food. She said there is a count nearby whose household seeks to expand its ranks.” Gwen brought her attention back from the heavens, fixing her eyes on the Captain again. “Perhaps, if I’m kept busy, I will have less time to grieve.”

“I would give you escort as far as those gates, but I risk enough simply being here.”

Gwen nodded and handed back the bottle. “You have gone beyond your duty, Captain. I can ask no more from you. If I had coin at all, I would offer recompense for your assistance.”

Hart shrugged and tipped the bottle one last time, draining it. “Perhaps Fate will toss us across one another’s paths sometime in the future, when you might repay the debt.”

“Perhaps she will,” Gwen said, looking back to the stars. “Perhaps, indeed.”

**

The Great Hall at Torchwood was dark, save for the dull glow of the half-dead embers in the fireplace. They cast a shallow orange glow over the hearth, but little further. It wasn’t light enough to read by, barely light enough to see by, but it seemed bright enough to serve one purpose:

It was light enough to drink by.

Jack was seated on the raised hearth, knees bent, a bottle dangling from the hand resting on his thigh. His back leant against one of the thick supports. Beyond the rise and fall of his chest and the flex of his arm to draw the bottle to his lips, he didn’t move. As Ianto stood in the doorway, he thought the Duke looked like nothing more than a statue, chiseled roughly out of stone and grief. Oh, that I could offer a hand to smooth those edges and ease that grief, he thought. Oh , that he could ease my own.

“It’s not polite to stare,” came a grumbling voice from further within the hall. Ianto jumped. Then he blushed. Caught red handed.

“I was watching the fire,” Ianto offered in reply as he stepped further inside the doorway. “You simply happen to be in the way.”

Jack gave a gruff sound of ascent and raised the bottle once more. With the dim light behind him, Ianto was treated to the shadowed silhouette of Jack’s Adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. It made Ianto gulp in response. 

“You should be in bed,” he said after a moment, long enough to find control over his voice. 

“Sweet Viola, is that an invitation?” In the dark, Ianto couldn’t see Jack’s face, but he could hear the wicked smile laced through every word; it was a pale version of what it should have been.

“You should be in your bed.”

“Ah, so it’s a request to join me instead.”

“You should be asleep ,” Ianto corrected, shaking his head. Jack turned, swinging his legs forward until his feet settled once again on the floor. 

“I dare say so should you.” He patted the spot next to him and stretched the bottle out in offer. Ianto hesitated, considered the impropriety of what he was about to do, and dismissed it. Slippered feet barely made a sound as they moved over the stone. 

“Sleep eludes me,” he said, and settled on the fire-warmed hearth. Jack offered out the bottle again and Ianto took it. The first sip burned on its way down and he coughed against the sensation. Jack grinned. Close as he now was, with the dim glow from the fireplace to assist, Ianto could see the curve of the Duke’s lips and the faint lines around his mouth. As Ianto passed him back the bottle, Jack lifted it and took another long draw from it.

“Morpheus and I are at odds most nights as well. Tonight especially.”

“Count John’s refusal steals your peace.”

“Count John’s refusal steels my heart.” 

Ianto watched Jack out of the corner of his eye, watched the laughing planes of his face tighten, the elegant line of his jaw tense. He reached and took the bottle away, fingers inadvertently brushing the Duke’s. “I doubt your heart has within it the ability to be so hard.”

“Then perhaps I will build a sturdy cage to wrap it in. Plate it in armor so Cupid’s arrows can’t find purchase again.” Jack stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back, weight balanced on his carefully placed hands. Ianto’s eyes were drawn down the long, taut line of the Duke’s body, a thousand thoughts running through his head and each one of them more shocking than the last. He nearly cheered when Jack drew him out of those thoughts with a quiet, “Have you been in love, Viola?”

“Aye, sir,” he said, gulping down a deep drink from the bottle. He hoped the flush of his cheeks was either invisible in the dim light or blamed on the drink.

“What sort of man was he?”

“Quite like you, sir,” Ianto said, passing the bottle back. Jack took a quick drink and shook his head. 

“Nowhere near your worth, then. Of what age?”

Ianto nearly choked on his own tongue. “Close to yours, I would think.”

Jack, for the first time since the Count’s refusal had been delivered, laughed. It was rich and deep and Ianto swore he felt the jostle of it through the stone. “Oh, find yourself a young man, Viola. Experience cannot make up for the enthusiasm of youth.”

Ianto smiled, made more daring by the alcohol heating his blood. He leaned toward the Duke, voice dropped to a rich, husky tone. “Experience goes slow where enthusiasm would fumble, sir.”

There may have been warning: a flash of heat in Jack’s eyes left shadowed by the dying embers, a low growl hidden by the thud of the bottle falling to the floor. There may have been a hundred different signals that flew through the air that Ianto missed, either because of the dark or the alcohol in his system, or the hour, or simply because he didn’t want to receive them. All he knew was this: that he barely had the time to form his grin, to put the ‘r’ on ‘sir,’ before Jack had closed what distance there had still been between them to catch Ianto’s lips in a kiss. 

It wasn’t shy or hesitant, wasn’t filled with gentlemanly reserve and quiet pleading. The kiss asked permission for nothing but demanded everything . Ianto barely had time to register the pressure of Jack’s lips before Jack’s tongue was coaxing Ianto’s lips apart. Barely had time to moan before the sound was muffled by his plunderer’s mouth. Barely had time to realize he was demanding all the same things of Jack that were being demanded of him. There was a hand at his back, dragging him across the stone hearth and against the Duke’s body. He could feel Jack’s heart thudding wildly against him as Jack’s other hand slid up his ribcage and over his –

Ianto pulled back, oddly meeting little resistance as he scrambled off the hearth and stumbled several steps away. With his back to the fire, he adjusted the padding across his chest to make sure his “breasts” hadn’t slipped during their abbreviated manhandling. Jack stopped just behind him, his warmth felt even if he didn’t attempt to touch Ianto at all. They stood that way, close but distant, silent but for the uneven register of their breathing, while the embers started to die behind them.

“You will see the Count tomorrow,” Jack finally said. His voice was rough as sandpaper and had much the same effect on Ianto’s nerves as the substance would have. 

“Of course, sir.” Ianto fought to keep his voice even, steady, and lilting as he turned to face Jack. “I don’t expect the outcome to be different, but I will go if you bid it.” Would walk into Hell if you so bid it, he thought, and bit his tongue to keep the thought to himself.

Jack nodded, then strode back to the fireplace to retrieve the overturned bottle from the floor. With one long gulp he emptied what was left of it. Leaving the empty bottle on the mantle, he made his way across the floor again, not looking at Ianto as he passed. 

“Sleep, Viola,” he said as he rounded the corner and disappeared down the hall. Ianto swallowed with some difficulty and ran a cautious hand over his wig. 

“As if I could sleep now.”

**

Few had slept in the great and noble house of Gallifrey. John had paced the gardens through the night, a habit he had succumbed to since Donna’s death, spurred on by his encounter with the Duke’s envoy that day. Toshiko, Owen, and Mickey had sat up in the kitchen into the wee hours of the morning, imagining the mayhem the new day would bring. 

Only Saxon appeared rested. More than that. He looked happy. Most staff had long come to the conclusion that, when it came to the Master of the House, happy was not an emotion he possessed. Glib, condescending, spiteful, vengeful, overbearing, and pompous, yes. Angry, most assuredly. Even, a time or two, melancholy. But never happy. 

That morning, he was smiling.

He smiled at everything and everyone. At the maids beating the tapestries, at the cooks in the kitchen, even at Owen as he passed him in the hall. Twice he was caught smiling at the Count’s breakfast tray, as if the bread and jam would be offended if he let the smile slip. Each person he passed was greeted with a warm “Good morning!” pitched just an octave too high or a hint too cheerful. Half the staff thought he’d gone mad in the night. The other half suspected he might be drunk. The fact that he’d paired his typically formal grey attire with bright yellow stockings only served as proof for both theories. Saxon alone knew that there was a kernel of truth in both.

Like the others, he had not slept well the night before. When he slept of late he dreamt of drums; repetitive, primal drums that chased him awake and left him breathless and sweating when he woke. He remembered having heard them before when he was child, though he could no longer place the how or when of it. Fear of being forced awake by the endless drumming had kept him up long past when others would have been tucked in their beds. That’s why he was alert when the letter slid under his door. 

The words still played in his head, like an unforgettable tune:

> To the Unknown Beloved, this, and my good wishes. 
> 
> I do not know when I began to love you. It did not overcome me like a fever, but crept into my heart and filled it slowly, over time, with you. Its every beat echoes a single word and that word is your name. No other holds such music for me. Except, perhaps, ‘my lord’ when it falls so lightly from your lips. That, dear servant of my heart, is like the chorus of angels to me.
> 
> It has become torture, those moments when you are not at my side. Your quiet support and presence are all that bolsters me. Your rare smile brings such warmth to me. Oh, that I could bask more in that sun! 
> 
> I have not the strength or courage to tell you this directly. I fear the refusal I might see in your eyes. So I tell you this in secret, and ask of you only this. If you feel no more than loyal friendship for me, say nothing of this. Let us both take my foolishness to the grave. But if you could love me, I beg of you to give me some simple sign. Wear your yellow stockings (remember who had commented so favorably on them before?); smile at all you meet (for nothing warms me like your smile). 
> 
> Present me these and I shall know beyond doubt that you do love me. Withhold them and I will know your answer as well. 
> 
> With baited breath I wait,  
> The Fortunate Unhappy 

Every single one of those echoing words in his subconscious made Saxon smile that much harder.

It hadn’t been hard to figure out the sender. There had been the little clues – the use of “my lord,” “servant of my heart.” But more telling than those was one simple detail: the Count’s seal, pressed firmly into the wax. Seeing the familiar crest cut into the red sealing wax had sent a thrill of absolute delight straight through him. And it could be no mistake, the recipient. No one else in the castle owned a pair of yellow stockings. Just Saxon alone. 

Saxon had sat at his desk, staring at the letter, for ten minutes before the reality of it had sunk in. Reread it countless times, sure he had misinterpreted one passage or another, or that the Count’s frantic hand had half-disguised one crucial word for another. Perhaps the bit in the middle was actually badly spelt Latin so illegibly scrawled that it looked like other words entirely. 

The Count loved him. It was a strange and unexpected revelation, wholly inappropriate for several reasons Saxon had little trouble conjuring from the night air around him. Their pre-existing relationship as master and servant, principally, might raise an eyebrow in town or amongst the household. Then there was the very obvious difficulty of their shared gender, which made it impossible. Or at least difficult. Theoretically. 

But as he sat and reread the letter, Saxon was hard-pressed to deny one very crucial fact: that he cared more for the Count than was at all proper. He could admit now, recognize now, the inappropriate amounts of affection he held for the man. The way praise brought a warm rush of satisfaction through his blood or how the slightest criticism from him could crush him. How one of the Count’s mad grins could lift his own spirits and how his slightest melancholy could leave Saxon wrecked. He would do anything for his employer, without restraint or limit, and that just had to be more than simple loyalty, didn’t it?

The Count loved him! Just as remarkably, he loved the Count in return.

“By this day’s end,” Saxon said as he straightened his collar before one of the hallway mirrors, “we shall each to the other declare our love directly. By night’s fall, all that is his will be as good as mine.

“And by tomorrow morn, Sir Owen will be out on the street.”

**

Saxon found Count John in his library, seated at his desk and surrounded by stacks of opened books. He had been there several hours, by the look of it: his head was resting on his crossed arms, which held open yet another book in the center of his desk. A cold cup of tea sat near one hand, fingers outstretched in its direction as if he had been on the verge of reaching for it when sleep overcame him. Saxon shook his head, his smile turning tender as he began closing and straightening the various books threatening to topple onto his sleeping lord.

“What knowledge did you seek so desperately in the cusp of the night that had you so deep in these?” he asked as he set the books aside.

“The ways and means of courting,” came a mumbled reply from the prone form upon the desk. The sudden burst of half-stifled speech made Saxon jump and nearly drop the book in his hand. 

“My lord!” he said, clutching the book to his chest. He laughed, a nervous giggle that sounded half-mad and was made more so by the endless smile pulling at both corners of his mouth. “I thought you were sleeping.”

John’s head rose slowly from the desk. His hair stuck up from the top of his head at an odd, unnatural angle, as if it had been permanently shaped into the crease of the book beneath his face. “In faith, I have tried. But this tenacious pull at my heart would not let it be so.”

“I think, my lord, that you need learn less about the subject than you might think.” Saxon’s smile faltered at the sight of John’s hair and the general unkempt nature of him but clicked quickly back in place before the Count’s attention lifted to him. He preened under the weight of his master’s glance, shifting on his feet to try to best display the bright yellow squeezed around his legs. “You are neither so young that you have lacked the experience, nor so old that you have forgotten it.”

“Thank you, Saxon, for your confidence. Would I had half of it, I would be well armed.” John stretched his arms overhead as he rose and gave his servant a sidelong glance. “And half your energy this morning as well. I do not believe I’ve ever seen you so struck with the inability to stand still.”

“Sweet words leave my feet light,” Saxon said. He crossed his feet at the ankles as he stood. A sleepy smile broke on John’s face and he gave Saxon’s shoulder a hearty slap.

“Caught yourself a lass, did you? Well done, Saxon, well done!”

Saxon’s smile slipped, replaced by a confused frown. “No lass, sir, and it was not I that cast the net to catch the prey.”

John’s eyebrow crept up, arched over his eye like the curl of a question mark. “A lad, then. Well, good fortune there, too.”

“My lord-“ Saxon’s words were cut off by a firm knock at the door, which announced the presence of Toshiko a mere second before she stepped into the room.

“Sir,” she said, curtseying low. “You have a visitor at the gate again.”

“And what company is this?” John asked, a hopeful smile curling his lip.

“The same bold maid that called yesterday,” Toshiko replied, something tugging at her lip as well when she saw Saxon standing behind the Count. “Shall I send her off?” The words were uneven, as if she meant to keep herself from laughing.

“No! No, do nothing of the sort.” John ran to the desk, pulling his jacket from the back of the chair and pulling it on. “Have her escorted to the garden. I will meet with her there.”

Toshiko nodded. “As you wish. But, my lord…” She pointed to her hair, arching her eyebrows toward her hairline. John ran a quick hand over his own hair and swore under his breath when he felt the state of it.

“Tell her I shall be along presently,” he said, before rushing from the room, sending Toshiko spinning as he passed her. Toshiko giggled as she spun herself forward again, though whether it was from the mad rush of the Count or the mad look of Saxon as he glared at her over his pinched smile remained unknown.

“What amuses you so, fair lady?” he ground out between tightly clenched, smiling teeth.

“Our master’s folly and little else,” she said, smoothing a hand over her hair. “Do pardon me, loyal Saxon. I must tend to his guest.” Toshiko curtsied again, though nowhere near as deep, then scurried from the room.

Saxon turned and stalked toward the window once he was left in solitude and silence in the library. The window he chose overlooked the garden and the long walk there from the gate. 

“Why does he rush so to greet such a hindrance?” he asked the rock and mortar, sighing as they did not immediately present an answer. He leaned against the wall beside the window, watching Toshiko hurry across the yard toward the barred gate. “Why does he beam so at the prospect of her company and yet say nothing of the clues I present so earnestly? Faith, if I did not know better, I would swear he did not…”

Saxon straightened, a look of realization slotting into place over his expression. “Of course!” he said, triumph ringing in his voice. “He cannot embrace my ascent until he has finished with the fool, Jack. How could he proclaim his love of me while the shadow of his other suitor lingers overhead? Oh, he is a thoughtful lover.”

With a sigh and a smile, he leaned once again against the wall, watching the morning breeze rustle the leaves of the young trees in the garden. I will watch from here, he thought, and see him send this last envoy away empty handed.

“And then he will be mine.”

**

The Gallifrey gardens were, at once, both grand and lazy. They had been Donna’s personal project before her death. In the years since their parents passed, the gardens had fallen into disuse and peril. It had been Donna – dear, brilliant, persistent Donna – that had undertaken their slow resurrection. In the afternoons, while John was immersed in books and theory and flights of mental fancy, Donna knelt over the flower beds, plucking weeds here or planting newer, more exotic flowers there. John had offered, more than once, to hire someone to see to all the work – several someone’s, if she preferred – but Donna had dismissed the idea outright. There was nothing wrong with getting one’s hands dirty, she always said, and nobles should not be exempt from the rare occasion of earth beneath one’s fingernails.

Most of Donna’s hard work was still evident in the gently budding trees and carefully planted flowers. But here and there the path through was overgrown or a bush had been left in need of trimming. The roses, though…

The roses had been his sister’s favorite, her most prized addition to the grounds, and John himself would come out at night, when sleep was as hard to hold onto as the wind, to pluck the weeds or trim back the thorns. They were, in his opinion, the most beautiful things to ever grow from the earth, and he often prayed that Donna could see them from her place in Heaven and gloried in their simple beauty. 

As he passed the line of bright red buds he stopped to pluck one from its bush. Up ahead, he saw Toshiko leading her charge along the straightest piece of the path. Good. He hadn’t kept his lady waiting.

“Count,” Toshiko said with a brief curtsy, “I bring you the Duke’s emissary, as requested.”

“I see that you do,” John said, grinning but saying little else. He was too transfixed by the subtle porcelain hue of his lady’s skin in the sunlight, the shimmer it brought to her eyes. 

“And having done so, I bid you both farewell.” Toshiko wore a knowing smile; she fixed it upon John before backing quickly away and running for the house. John did his best not to blush under the wise scrutiny. Toshiko had too much of Donna’s keen eye and knew him too well to miss anything.

“Come,” he said, with a gesture toward a nearby bench. “Sit with me.”

“As it pleases you,” Ianto said. He sat gracefully upon the bench, careful to tuck the gathers of his dress beneath him as he did. John claimed the spot beside him, the purloined rose still hidden at his side.

“What is your name?”

Ianto blinked. “What bearing has it on the business at hand?”

“It bears on our civility, yours and mine. You know mine. I would know yours.”

Ianto gave a brief bow, little more than a bend of neck and shoulder. “Viola, my lord, is your servant’s name.”

“I think you forget whose mission you are on, sweet Viola. You serve the Duke, not me.”

“And he serves you, good Count. His every heart beat is at your command. With a word, you could still it in his chest.” Ianto remembered all too well how that very organ felt, beating beneath his hand the night before, and felt his cheeks grow hot. “What is his is rightly yours, so your servant’s servant is your servant, my lord.”

John waved his at the empty air. “His heart is a too studied subject. I have no desire to speak more of it.”

“I come to you on his behalf, sir. Who else’s heart should I speak of?”

John brought his occupied hand into view, fingers curled carefully around the bud’s long stem. His eyes dropped to Ianto’s hands. “I would rather,” he said, extending his unoccupied hand for one of Ianto’s, “speak of your heart. And mine.”

Ianto stood, taking two quick steps from the bench. “My lord…”

“Be silent; let me speak.” John turned on the bench to face Ianto but did not rise, did not give the slightest indication that he thought to give chase. His eyes dropped to the rose still in his hand and he smiled. “You have stolen in the span of one conversation what the Duke could not pry from my chest with a hundred pleas. And yet…” He looked up, finding Ianto with his eyes. “And yet I fear I have not touched even the smallest piece of yours.”

“With great apology, sir, you have not.” Ianto’s smile was sad, drooping at the corners even as they lifted. “Though not from any failing of your own. I love you not, as you love Jack not: without reproach.”

“We have been barely introduced. With time, your heart may yet be swayed.”

Ianto turned, not able to stand the weight of the plea in John’s eyes. “May yours be swayed by my master?”

John shook his head. “No. Not in a thousand years.”

At that Ianto turned again, fixing his face with stony determination. “And with the same surety I must tell you I will not be swayed!”

John rose from the bench and took two strides to where Ianto stood, a hand grasping each of his shoulders and pulling him forward by the grasp. Desperate lips fell on Ianto’s, warm and full of untempered desire. Ianto put a hand in the center of John’s chest and shoved until the Count’s lips were pried from his. He continued to push until the Count’s hands left his shoulders and he was free to step back. John, coming back to himself, fell back to the bench and sighed.

“Pardon me, dear Viola, for-“

“I pray thee, have you nothing for my master? No answer to lighten his heart?”

“None,” John said, chancing a look to his guest.

“Then I bid you farewell, sir. Our business is complete. I will not return to lay my master’s heart at your feet for you to trample upon it.” Ianto curtsied quickly, then turned and made his way back down the path toward the gate. John was left to groan on the bench, alone. As he gazed down, he noticed he had dropped the rose in the brief embrace. It lay, crumpled, on the ground.

“Much like my heart,” he muttered, dropping his head to his hands.

At the window overlooking the garden, Saxon growled.


	4. Act IV

Hart sat on a half-rotted stump, knocking back long draws from a flask as he watched the morning light play through the leaves overhead. Not even midday yet, and already he was well on his way to drunk. In his mind, there was little else to do. He had parted company with his companion at first light, sent her on her merry way, and was now stuck, alone, in a land where he was a wanted man. 

His choices, short of diving back into the drink, were limited.

“Never thought I’d miss her incessant prattling,” he said to no one at all; perhaps he was talking to the trees. They were, after all, a captive audience. 

“Here’s to her,” he said, raising his flask to the heavens in salute. “To our fair Gwendolyn. May she find that which she seeks.”

He was lifting the flask to complete his toast when he saw the line of soldiers approaching from his left. It only took him a second to identify the crest on their chest plates. Knights of Torchwood Castle.

“Balls.” Hart tipped the flask to his lips and drained it in one long, steady swallow. By the time he was throwing the flask aside, the soldiers were upon him, swords drawn. He rose slowly, arms out at his sides and as far from his sword as he could manage them to be and yet keep them attached to his body.

“All right, boys,” he said, a twisted grin hanging on his lips. “Take me to your leader.”

**

Gwen stood at the gates outside Gallifrey castle, chewing on her lower lip. She had found the castle easily enough, with the direction of a woman in the village and Captain Hart’s further instruction. But now that she was there, she wasn’t sure her plan would bear the fruit she hoped. She had not, in her life, done a moment’s hard labor. And while she had no doubt she could learn quickly enough to pick up anything asked of her, it did not give her much to use to sway the household to her qualifications.

“I will beg if I have to,” she said to herself as she squared her shoulders. “And latch myself to their gates if begging does not work.”

As Gwen stepped forward to approach the guard at the gate, the iron swung open. Through the gap stepped a man with wild eyes and a mad grin. And much to Gwen’s dismay and fear, he headed straight for her.

“Dare you to darken this doorstep again? When you were sent off so firmly before?”

Gwen stepped back, looking over her shoulder left and right to see who this madman could be speaking to. There was only her. “I beg you, sir, and offer apologies for perceived offenses. But surely, I am not who you think I am.”

“To throw one’s self without provocation at a man as fine as my master is offense enough. To play the innocent when you are far from?” Saxon just kept advancing, arms flailing. The guard had run toward the house, crying out for help. Gwen wondered, as she tried not to trip over her feet as she continued to back blindly down the road, why the guard hadn’t simply stuck around to help her himself. “Wanton! Harlot! And liar now as well!” 

Now Gwen stopped. The man continued to come toward her, continued waving his arms in a mad threat of violence, and Gwen simply stopped.

Balled up a fist.

And thrust it at her assailant’s nose.

Saxon stumbled back, a hand over his nose and blood pouring between his fingers. He was so shocked by the unexpected punch that he stood for several moments after, simply staring at Gwen and doing nothing to staunch the steady flow of red creeping down the sides of his hands and dripping to the ground. By the time the awe had time enough to fade, there was a guard at each side of him, taking him by the elbow and dragging him back toward the gates.

“Call me such again and I will have your lying tongue for a doorstop!” she called after him, rubbing her sore fist as the force of the impact began to throb through her knuckles. 

“I will not be stifled!” he shrieked, kicking out yellow swathed legs as the guards drug him backwards. “No flagrant trollop will usurp me in my master’s eyes!”

Gwen stood and stared as the man was led away. It wasn’t until the threat was past that she realized how shallow and gasping her breathing had become or how much her legs shook under her. Both realizations had barely found their way into her notice when her knees began to buckle. She would have collapsed to the dirt if not for a sudden hand at her elbow and the presence of a resisting weight pulling her upright again. When she looked up to see who her savior was, she was caught instantly by two gentle brown eyes, full of concern and apology.

“Are you hurt?” John asked, once Gwen was steady again. Even then, his arm remained at her back as if he feared she would crumble if he moved it too far. 

“No, my lord, not even a hair nudged out of place.” Gwen felt oddly fluid, as if the bones holding her upright were made of little more than salt water and good intentions. One carefully spoken word from her savior’s lips, and she was sure her knees would desert her again. 

Mickey was two steps behind the Count, hands in his pockets and a self-pleased tilt to his lips. “Nay, I think Saxon left with all the pain of the confrontation,” he said as he gave a quick bow to Gwen. “He came by it at the end of her fist.”

“I apologize for my part in disrupting the peace, but not for his bloodied nose. I did nothing to provoke his outrage.”

“No, sweet Viola, you did nothing to earn his abuse.” John nudged Gwen gently toward the gate by the arm at her back. Gwen stumbled once under the soft direction; John tsked. “We well get you inside and braced well with tea, for truly, it cures all ills.”

“Shall I run ahead and alert the fair Toshiko to prepare the pot, sir Count?” Mickey asked, taking two steps backward for each of John’s forward ones. John nodded; Mickey bowed before sprinting ahead for the door. Gwen’s feet stuttered to a stop and she looked up, blinking.

“You are the Count who calls this castle home?” she asked in a voice full of quiet awe. John’s brow furrowed and he reached a hand to smooth back her hair.

“Aye, the same, as I was this morning, and yesterday morning as well.” He turned to her, eyes searching her face. “He did you no harm? You’re certain?”

Gwen shook her head. “None, I swear it.”

“You act very strangely, Viola. I dare think I should call the physician. Perhaps you had a shock.”

He mistakes me for a Viola, and I find little within me to correct him, Gwen thought as she stood transfixed by the Count’s warm glance. If I have gone mad, let there be no cure. If I dream, let me remain asleep. 

Gwen shook her head more firmly and wrapped her hand around the one skimming her hair. “I am fine, sir, by Viola or any other name that pleases your lips to speak. I swear it.”

John appeared doubtful for a moment, then finally sighed and nodded. “Come. To tea with us. All will seem right with the world after.”

As the Count led Gwen through the castle gates, she thought that, for the first time in days that might well be true.

**

Saxon was not unaccustomed to the dark. 

That was not to say that he favored it, or endured it amicably. Nothing frightened him as completely, as purely, as a dark room. There, where the world became shadow and landmarks rendered useless, it was easy to forget what was real and what was fantasy. Monsters swam in the black spaces between his sightless eyes and the walls, hovering close enough he could feel their breath rustling the hair on his neck. If he breathed too hard, whimpered in the silence, shifted his weight, the monsters would know he was there. They would find him, devour him, and leave nothing behind but his picked clean bones.

In the dark, the drums were real.

He sat, still and wrapped tightly around himself in a corner, and hardly breathed. He could hear the murmur of voices on the other side of the cell door, could feel the shift of the feet pacing back and forth in front of his prison through the vibrations of the floor. The drums kept a steady, low rhythm out of sync with the footsteps outside. His nose had stopped bleeding; he breathed through his mouth to avoid the coppery smell still lingering in his nostrils. His face ached. His pride ached more.

The small window in the door opened with an uneven click, spilling weak light into the cell and banishing the monsters to their corners and shadows again. Saxon leapt to his feet and fell upon the door as a pair of eyes peered through the newly opened slit.

“Here rests Saxon the Madman?” an oddly accented voice asked from the other side of the thick wood.

“Saxon dwells here, good sir,” the steward said, a frantic edge to his voice, “though I be no madman.”

“Then I have chosen the wrong cell,” the voice said, and a hand began to close the window. Saxon reached to jam his fingers between the hatch and the window’s edge.

“I pray you, sir, do not leave me to this darkness!”

“The darkness exists but in your own mind.” The hand at the hatch paused, and finally fell away. Eyes again filled the small opening, dark and foreign. “Beyond it, there is none.”

“No, there is much here, sir, and it would consume me if I allowed it!”

“Ah,” said the voice, amused. “There is the rub. You must allow it to consume you, thus it is within you only; you would consume yourself.”

Saxon slammed a hand against the wood. The door shook. “Trap me not in these riddles! I have been abused, greatly abused, and for with no provocation. As the sky is blue and as trees grow upward, I swear to you I am not mad!”

“Do not trees have roots?”

Saxon paused; frowned. “Of course.”

“And do roots not stretch downward, beneath the Earth?” Saxon nodded and said nothing. “Then trees do grow downward and you are mad.” The hatch, now unobstructed, slid closed with a harsh click. Saxon beat the door again and screamed.

“Hear me!” The two words echoed off the close walls and bounced harshly against Saxon’s ears. He slid down the door, fingers dug into the wood as if he could claw his way through it, and banged his forehead against the barrier. 

Inside his head, the drums roared.

 

Beyond the door, Sir Owen and Mickey stood, giggling. 

“If there is justice in the world, this will lower him a peg or two,” Owen whispered.

“If there is kindness in the world, he will not kill the both of you for it,” Toshiko said from her spot near the cellar door. 

“Do not feign innocence, Lady Tosh,” Mickey said, stepping to her side. “Your hand crafted the letter.”

“Aye, and your lips cried ‘madness!’ and sent the guards hither with him.”

“Fear him not,” Owen said, taking up Toshiko’s other arm. His fingers took hold of hers and brought her hand carefully to his lips. Toshiko blushed, despite herself. “There is no more madness in him than there is sobriety in me. The green-eyed sickness that plagues him now will dissipate quickly enough. Now come.” Owen’s free hand reached for the door behind them and gave it a gentle pull. “My stomach growls and tells me, more surely than any clock, that lunch is due.”

Toshiko’s eyes rolled upward toward her hairline and she shook her head. “We can tell better time by your stomach than by the stars,” she said, taking the lead up the stairs with both men close behind.

**

Jack had taken John’s latest refusal as graciously as the previous dozen. Ianto had, for many reasons, left the kiss and the Count’s sudden ardor to himself. Even then, the gently delivered “No, my lord,” had settled as peacefully as a hornet in a bonnet upon Jack’s ears. 

“Enough of indirect messengers,” he had said as his cup clattered against the floor. “I shall deliver the declaration myself.”

Which is what led Ianto to be walking at his Master’s side along the road leading to Gallifrey. As he trod the familiar path, imagining it was his own previous footprints his feet landed in with each step, his own footprints – new and old – swept away by the hem of his skirt, he tried not to sigh. Into hell, into the dark, into the unknown, he thought, each and all of those I would prefer than to walk back through those gates.

“You think I’m foolish,” Jack said, his voice so sudden an intrusion that it made Ianto flinch. 

“No, my lord. It is not my place to judge you anything.”

“If you loved as I do, yearned as I do, and the one you yearned for rebuked it, what would you do?”

Ianto paused, eyes cast on the familiar curtain wall up ahead. “I would hope I had the strength to accept my unrequited’s wishes,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack’s jaw tighten. “And yet, I fear there is not strength enough in all the world to let go of that which we desire.”

“Perhaps hearing the words directly will be enough to break the spell on my heart.” Jack squared his shoulders and nodded ahead. “Destiny, however it will fall, waits ahead.”

The pair were almost to the gate when they came upon a quartet of Torchwood knights, marching in formation around a fifth man, bound, in the middle of their ranks. The knight at the head of the contingent stepped forward and bowed.

“My lord,” the knight said from the vicinity of Jack’s toes.

“Good knight, what troublemaker have you caught thus amongst you?” Jack asked.

“That same pirate and knave that you banished from your court, my lord,” the knight said as he straightened. He reached back, taking hold of the rope attached to the prisoner’s hands, and tugged him forward. Hart lifted his head slowly; the smirk he wore was weighted heavily with resignation.

“Hello, Jack,” he said, punctuated with a wink. Jack’s response was silent, and punctuated with a fist. Ianto gasped as he watched the Duke’s knuckles crash into the prisoner’s jaw. Hart stumbled back, caught by the men behind him more than his own equilibrium. 

“Banished,” Jack growled through gritted teeth. “Have you forgotten so soon the meaning of the word? Or did you merely forget the charges that brought about your sentence?”

Hart straightened, in some good measure due to the unfriendly support behind him, and gingerly touched his jaw with bound hands. “Years have passed, Jack. Years enough to heal the scars I inflicted twice over. Would forgiveness cost so much?”

Jack lunged. Ianto’s hand at his arm stopped him, barely. “He wants forgiveness!” Jack roared, once he had truly stilled. He turned to Ianto; Ianto had never seen such rage in the Duke’s eyes before. “I accepted him as a brother, trusted him above all others, loved him as kin, and he repaid my devotion with betrayal!” Jack whirled again to face Hart, hands clenched in tight fists at his sides. 

“I did you much harm in my youth, it’s true.” Hart as well turned his attention to Ianto, eyes full of silent pleas. “But this very lady can tell you, as surely as God himself, that I have changed my ways.”

Ianto gaped. When Jack’s gaze cut back to him, Ianto shook his head, hard enough to send the long ends of the wig beating against his shoulders. “Surely, sir, I have never seen this man before.”

“Liar!” This time, Hart’s voice lifted in a desperate roar. “For my assistance in your time of crisis, this is how I am repaid? With falsehood and rebuke? I pulled you, cold, from the ocean that meant to be your grave, saw to your safety all these months, and you thank me thus?”

“I have not, until this very moment, been presented with the sight of your face!”

“Hold,” Jack said, his voice full of steel and ice. “When came this lady here?”

“Two days hence, and she was in my company countless days before that.”

Ianto blinked. For the first time in months, he felt the sweet tickle of hope in the pit of his stomach. He opened his mouth to ask the question waiting on the tip of his tongue, but the gate ahead swung open then, catching all attention. Count John stepped through it with a pair of his own knights at his back.

“The Count approaches with the blade over my heart in his hand.” Jack turned once more to Hart, disdain and pity replacing the rage of before. “Still your tongue, traitor. It proves as false as before. Viola has attended me these three months. But we will decide your Fate once mine is concluded.” Jack made a short wave and the knights pulled Hart back into their ranks again. Then, with Ianto at his heel, he strode toward the approaching Count.

“What noise is this outside my gate? Have you come with force to take that which you cannot earn?” John asked when he stopped before the Duke’s assemblage. His eyes flicked to Ianto, at Jack’s right, and he frowned. “How find you here, Viola?”

“Gracious Count-” Jack began.

“Do you not speak, Viola?” It struck Ianto then that John was not even looking at Jack at all. He was staring exclusively at Ianto. “Have you nothing to say?”

“My lord would speak,” Ianto said. “My duty hushes me.”

“He speaks of nothing new; I have heard his word before. They leave me as cold now as they did then.”

“Still so cruel, old friend?”

“Still so constant.” John stepped forward, a hand extended out for Ianto. “Come then, sweet lady. Your lord has spoken. I have listened. It changes not which direction my heart’s wind blows. I left you with a question before we parted and I would hear the answer.”

All eyes, suddenly, were fixed on Ianto and the spot where he stood. Shock registered among the knights on both sides; Hart’s eyebrow quirked in amused interest. But it was Jack’s eyes Ianto searched the crowd for; his eyes that burned with a renewed rage that left Ianto feeling scalded. 

“My lord, I swear…”

Jack’s hand was at Ianto’s throat before he could draw breath to begin the next word, tight enough to threaten, loose enough to let air through. John stepped forward to intervene, but four Torchwood knights barred his way. “Jack!”

“Do not swear!” Jack growled. “Do not paint my ears with your allegiances while your hand prepares the dagger to drive into my back.”

“I swear to you, my lord, I did not!”

“I beg of you to present my love to that which I desire, and you offer your own in its place! Then fill my cracked heart with lilting words and stories of rebuked affection when all the while you worked to steal my beloved’s heart!”

“The only heart stolen was my own,” Ianto worked out between the fingers wrapped around his throat. When Jack’s fingers tightened, Ianto scratched at his wrists to loosen the hold. “Please, my lord.”

Jack stared, hard and cold, into Ianto’s eyes for a moment more, then shoved him aside with a harsh jerk. Ianto stumbled back, a hand to his throat as he coughed around stuttered breaths, but remained on his feet. 

“Have her,” Jack said with a dismissive wave between Ianto and John. “I thank you both, at least, for curing my affliction. May it inoculate me well for the-“ Jack stared, unblinking, straight ahead of him, head canted in odd contemplation as his words drifted off. Everyone turned to see what had brought the Duke’s ire to such a halt. Standing at the gate, transfixed by the events before her, was Gwen. 

“Forgive me, my lords,” she said, walking cautiously toward John. “I meant not to spy upon your spectacle, but my wait grew long and curiosity begged me follow.”

“How?” Jack asked, himself taking cautious steps forward. Gwen missed the word or the interest; her eyes had fallen on Captain Hart.

“Captain! How did you come to this?” 

Hart blinked. For the first time, his bravado slipped. With his bound hands he pointed down the road to where Ianto stood. “How did you come to stand here, when you stand already there?” 

Gwen followed the line of Hart’s gesture until her eyes fell on Ianto, pink faced and breathing heavily still. She took one step toward him; he took one toward her. As they grew closer, their heads each bent in a similar cant, mirror expressions of confusion and awe pulling at their faces.

“I had a brother,” she said. “I never had a sister, but a brother, lost to the sea’s rages.” She stopped just before Ianto. He could see tears gathering at the corners of her eyes and knew the same gathered in his. 

“I had a sister, similarly taken,” he said, reaching a hand to wipe the first freefalling tear from Gwen’s cheek. With his other, he grabbed the wig by the top and pulled it without care from his head. As it fell to the ground by his feet, he heard nine gasps in perfect unison rise from the assembled crowd. He ignored every one of them, focused instead on his sister’s face.

Through the tears, Gwen smiled. Then she threw her arms about his neck and held on as if convinced he would disappear otherwise. “Ianto,” she sobbed at his ear. “How I grieved that I would never see your face again.”

Ianto held her tightly, tighter than he knew was comfortable but could not stop. If he held too loosely, she might dissipate into nothing more than the thin, cold air he feared she was. “And I you,” he whispered, while he convinced himself the tears on his cheeks were merely transferred from hers and not his own. As the two embraced, Toshiko, Owen, and Mickey the Fool came running from the castle, brought out by the clamor. 

“What is this?” Toshiko whispered, watching the scene with confusion. It was then that Ianto remembered, with sudden and harsh clarity, that they were not alone. He pulled back only enough to face the Count and his men and the three new onlookers, his sister held close to his side.

“I am sorry, my lord. You have been mistook. And yet…” His eyes took in his sister’s faint blush and the sliver of adoration beneath John’s own confusion and smiled. “I think Fate has offered recompense, if you would have it.”

John approached slowly, eyes still flicking between brother and sister with some degree of disbelief. And yet, when he was close enough to reach out a hand he reached for Gwen’s. “We will discuss my recompense properly when time allows.” The mischievous grin Ianto had been greeted by when he first met the Count returned. “And when you are dressed appropriately to offer your blessing, brother .”

Ianto clapped John firmly on the back. “Assuredly we will. But first…” 

Ianto turned, expecting to find Jack behind him and waiting for his own explanation. But Jack was gone.

**

John sat in his study, leaned back in his chair, a scrutinizing eye leveled on the three standing before him. Toshiko, Owen, and Mickey squirmed under the weight of it and the added heft of the silence that accompanied it. But it was far less than they had earned, the Count thought, as he absorbed the confessions that brought them to this.

In the rush of joy after the twins reunion, and full of wine and melancholy, Owen had rushed to his cousin’s side and let loose with the details of their plot. John had listened, intent on the tale and keeping his expression bland and unreadable. A servant had been sent to Saxon’s room and the letter found amongst his things. John had read it, absorbed it in its entirety, and sat silent and stony since.

He leaned forward, elbows on the top of the desk, and kept his eyes level on the three culprits. “Bring Saxon,” he said to the same servant that had delivered the letter. 

Owen flinched.

Saxon had been in the cell less than a day, but looked as ragged as if he had been there a week. His hair, usually neat and straight, was a wild mess on his head. Dust had smudged his elbows and his cheek. His eyes did not hold a single drop of kindness.

“My lord executioner beckons?” he said when he stood before the Count’s desk.

John sat up straight in his chair, his blank expression giving way to compassion. “You have been wronged, dear steward, wronged much indeed.”

“So you admit your ill treatment!” Saxon’s eyes flashed with something close to anger, then dulled to accompany a pitying pout. “I have served you nobly and well, my lord. What cause had you to treat me thus?”

“I was not the one that wronged you,” John said, frowning.

“You yet deny it, with the proof of it before you?” Saxon grabbed for the letter upon the desk top and waved it wildly in John’s face. “You begged me to smile, to always smile for your delight; to come wearing the yellow tights that you so adore. You sit there with the truth at your fingers and tell me it’s not so?”

Toshiko stepped forward, hand raised. “If you look for she who wronged you, look no further than this hand,” she said, voice and limbs unsteady. “The Count had no part.”

“No, not she alone,” Owen said, turning to lock eyes with Saxon. “It was her hand, but the influence of the act and the method were my product and mine alone.”

Mickey stood stock still and silent, hands behind his back. John stared straight at him, eyebrows quirked in question. “Oh, all right,” he said, when the scrutiny went on a moment too long. “It was her hand and his influence, but my brain birthed the thought. We three –“ He gestured to include his compatriots and himself. “-are the villains due your wrath.”

Saxon stood as if frozen, eyes fixed on the three and his hands tightening into fists at his side. John thought, for a moment, that Saxon would launch himself at one of his abusers and was poised on the edge of his chair to stop him at the first twitch. But Saxon didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. And when he finally did move, it was to swivel his head toward John.

“If my lord needs no more of me,” he said, forcing his lips into a tight, cold smile.

“Get you to bed, Saxon. Rest. You have earned that and more.”

Saxon shook his head slowly. “No, sir, you misunderstand. I wish to leave your service.” Icy eyes cut to the three standing nearest him. “The injuries far outweigh any joy I might have in the position.”

John sighed, but nodded. “If you wish to leave, no one will stop you. Though I wish you would take the night to consider your options.”

“There are no options but this,” Saxon said, then turned to leave.

All in the room remained tense and expectant until the door closed behind him. When Saxon had gone, Owen let loose a ragged sigh and sank, boneless, into the nearest chair.

“Well, I say good-“

“Finish that sentence,” John said, a finger pointed at his wayward kin, “and you can follow after him in search of new lodgings.” Owen gulped, but nodded. The other two did as well. “Now, out. The lot of you. Let me not see a trace of you until morning.”

The conspirators left as quickly as they could manage, passing Gwen and Ianto – freshly changed into pants and a shirt and more comfortable than he had been in weeks - at the study door as they escaped. Gwen knocked softly and John waved them in.

“He was been most notoriously abused,” Gwen said.

“Far more than any man – or woman – may deserve.” John sighed, lifting the letter from his desk and balling it up. He threw it toward the window, and missed.

“You look tired, my lord,” Ianto said, minus the forced lilt he had spoken with for so long. 

“I feel tired, dear Ianto. It is only right the exterior should match.” John looked up and fought off a laugh. “My clothes fit you poorly.”

Ianto chuckled and looked down at himself. John was about his height, but far more reed-like in build. Everything was just that much tighter than it should have been. “Aye, they do. But I would not spend another minute in a dress, not for wisdom or gold.”

“I don’t know, brother. You cut a pretty enough picture in one,” Gwen said, a hand outstretched to pinch her brother’s cheek. “Though your legs lack something of a feminine curve.”

“Much of me lacks something of a feminine curve,” he said, shaking his head. 

“With the exception of your lips,” John said, off-handed. When silence fell after his comment left his mouth, he blushed. “I said that aloud, didn’t I?”

Both the twins nodded. Gwen bit her lip to keep from laughing. Ianto merely blushed.

“Right! So. What will you do now, Ianto, that your woman’s weeds are put away and the world awaits?”

“I know what I won’t do – ever claim the woman’s role is easier than the man’s, as I’ve learned the opposite is true. I know what I can’t do – even think of leaving Cardiff, as I’ve suffered long enough without my sister at my side.” He wrapped an arm affectionately around his sister’s waist and squeezed her warmly. “But what will I do? That, sir, I know not.”

“I give you the same advice I gave to Saxon, though he ignored it.” John rose from his chair, pushing away from the desk and crossing to the twins. He put a strong hand on Ianto’s shoulder and kept an authoritative sternness to his eyes. “Give it the night; stay here in comfort and think not on it until the morning. Fresh thoughts and perspectives may come with the new light of day.”

“Wise counsel,” Ianto said, nodding. “I appreciate and accept it. And thank you for it.”

John smiled and removed his hand, instead stepping to Gwen’s right and taking hers. “You brought me friendship and love. Wise counsel is the least I can provide in payment.”

**

Ianto thought, as he closed his eyes that night, that sleep would come easily. For the first time in weeks he knew his sister was alive and well; safe. There was no more hiding, no more lying, nothing weighing on his conscious. But after lying in bed for most of the night, staring at the ceiling or tossing and turning, he began to think sleep would never come.

Sometime before dawn he finally gave up and rolled out of bed. He wandered the castle for a bit, but it was unfamiliar and the nooks and crannies didn’t have the same soothing appeal of Torchwood. The longer he wandered, the more homesick he became – and realized, for the first time, that he had begun to see that stark, impenetrable keep as home.

Realized that he saw the man who owned it as home as well. And that left him feeling far more dismal than it should have.

He left a note in the kitchen for Gwen, in case he didn’t make it back before she woke, and headed out into the ebbing night. It wasn’t a long walk, compared to some he’d taken in his life, and it was so familiar he could do it with his eyes closed. The moon had long begun its descent, but it had been full and bright and lit the path well. He could see the trees of the forest to his left, the dark houses with their sleeping families that dotted the way on his right. Everything was quiet; the world around him was still asleep and did not want to consider waking yet. He tread carefully, quietly, so as not to wake it.

Three months within Torchwood had taught him every back way and secret entrance that the castle possessed, so it wasn’t hard, once he reached it, to slip inside. He picked the entrance near the kitchen, the one he had used the most often, that led in just behind the pantry. He worked the door openas quietly as he could and stepped lightly over the smoothed stone. With a smile, he ran his hand over the counter, smiled wider as he spotted the coffee accoutrements pushed to the wall. Jack hadn’t had them thrown out or broken, which brought the slightest bit of hope to his dismal thoughts. But then , he thought, looking at the simple carafe, you addicted him well and Martha watched you often enough to make the brew when asked. Suddenly, the set’s existence no longer brought him hope.

He found his way to his former room without rousing the household. It hadn’t been touched since he left that morning. The bed was neatly made, clothing put away, nothing out of place. Even his books were set just as he’d left them. 

There was a bag under the bed. He pulled it out and laid it on the mattress before moving about the room, gathering the things he wanted to keep. The books would go. There were a few trinkets, a few small things that had been on his person at the time of the shipwreck. Most of the other things in the room weren’t really his. They had belonged to Viola, a woman that never existed. Most of the dresses had been hand-me-downs or cast offs, altered by him with help from Martha. He doubted anyone would be able to use them now, but he folded them neatly and set them aside. Martha could reuse the material, at the very least.

“There was no need to sneak in, simply to pack.” Ianto stopped his careful folding and straightened but kept his back to the door. The voice was enough to identify who had found him.

“I thought to spare you the sight of me, Jack.” He was both surprised and grateful that his voice remained level and held none of the agony he felt. “As you had seemed so adverse to it this afternoon.”

“Vi-“ Jack sighed. Movement out of the corner of his eye told Ianto that Jack had leaned into the doorway as well. “Faith, I know not what to call you.”

“Call me nothing. I won’t linger long enough for polite pleasantries to be needed.”

Ianto wasn’t sure when Jack moved. In his time in the Torchwood household, he had come to understand that the lord of the manor could move very quickly, very quietly, when the situation called for it. So the fact that Jack had managed to leave the door, cross the room, and spin Ianto by a hand on his shoulder did not shock him. The fact that Jack then dragged Ianto flush against him and caught his lips in a hard, punishing kiss did. Ianto was stunned still for a second, a blink in which Jack pried his lips apart and ravaged Ianto’s mouth with his tongue. But then he balled his hands in Jack’s shirt, pressed himself into Jack’s unyielding body, and battled Jack’s invading tongue with his own.

When he felt hands slide under his shirt, against his bare skin, Ianto broke the kiss to groan.

“Ianto.”

Jack’s lips trailed Ianto’s jaw, painting the skin in sharp nips and open mouthed kisses. At the single word, he paused enough to ask, “What?”

“My name,” he said, his own hands finding Jack’s waistband beneath the long tail of his shirt and slipping past the barrier to grab a handful of firm, rounded flesh. Jack moaned deep in his throat and thrust his hips forward. “You may call me Ianto.”

“I will call you mine.” The words were little more than vibration against Ianto’s throat. The sharp dig of teeth into the skin was much more tangible. Ianto almost cried out in joy when Jack pushed him back onto the bed and fell with him a second later.

And fell with him again several more times before the sun shone through the window.

**

The castle slowly came to life beyond Ianto’s closed door, footsteps and sounds of life filtering through the wood. Ianto woke to Martha’s voice shouting orders in the hall and began to gently disentangle himself from the limbs wrapped around him. He was almost out of the bed before a strong arm snaked around his waist and pulled him back down again.

“Tis the nightingale and not the lark,” Jack muttered sleepily into Ianto’s shoulder as he dragged him flush against him again. 

“Tis neither.,” Ianto whispered, leaning in to press a quick kiss to Jack’s lips. “The castle stirs. They will look for their lord and master soon enough.”

“And they may look yet longer. Their lord and master requires sleep yet and these warm arms to ease him through it.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow. “Just these arms?”

“These arms,” Jack said, rolling Ianto without resistance so that he was pinned to the mattress by the Duke’s welcome weight. “These lips.” He leaned down, capturing Ianto’s bottom lip and worrying it between his teeth. “These sighs.” He shifted, grinding forward to drag his erection against Ianto’s, pulling groans from them both. 

“Jack, please…”

Something shifted in Jack’s expression, muddy desire replaced by a warm, sharp clarity that sparked over Ianto’s nerves as brightly as the friction against half-engorged skin did. When Jack’s hand rested over his chest, Ianto blinked.

“This heart,” he said, and Ianto thought for a moment he saw moisture at the corner of the Duke’s eyes. But he was mistaken; it had to be so. “I love no heart as I love this one or the man who houses it.”

“And it loves no other as it loves you. Why else would it work so hard to give you what you wanted, even if it meant denying it that which it wanted near as much?”

 

Martha did not knock. She never had, not once in the time Ianto had stayed at the castle, and did not then. When she opened the door and squealed, Ianto reached blindly for the covers to hide. Jack laughed.

“God in Heaven and all that is Holy!” she shouted, a hand brought to her eyes. “I come to tell you breakfast is ready. And to lock your bloody door in the future!”

When the door slammed shut, both men laughed.

**

That night, while couples settled fondly in two castles with worries well buried, two eyes loomed in the shadows. As he watched the shadows fall across the blue-hued walls of Gallifrey, Saxon’s fingers tapped out a rhythm against his thigh. Ba da da da dum. Ba da da da dum. Ba da da da dum. It matched the steady thrumming inside his head. As the rhythm grew louder and louder, crescendoed within his skull, he grinned.

“Soon,” he said to the darkness, to the things with sharp teeth waiting in the black. “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you soon enough.”

Without a look back, he slid into the shadows. As he disappeared, a laugh ripped through the night.


End file.
